


Nimble and Light

by emungere



Series: Ladders [11]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Cannibalism, Docking, Dogs, Domestic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, Murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-09-23
Packaged: 2018-04-17 05:05:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4653465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emungere/pseuds/emungere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will goes back to DC for the book tour with Freddie and gets kidnapped by a serial killer. Hannibal comes to save him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Hannibal unpacked radishes and butter and greens from his market bag and put the vegetables away. The new refrigerator, stainless steel, pristine inside and out, sat at odds with the more rustic details of the kitchen, but almost any model would. Will had offered to build some sort of wood panelling onto the front, but he’d had to leave before they could properly discuss it. 

His plane would still be in the air. Hannibal had thought of him often as the sun climbed toward the zenith and fell again toward the gold of late afternoon, vermeil on grass wet from rain. Will’s roof hadn’t leaked. Hannibal would tell him when he called. Assuming he did. He’d be tired after the flight. 

Winston whined low in his throat and pushed his head against Hannibal’s hand. Hannibal rubbed him behind one ear. Winston seemed to know Will was gone, but perhaps that wasn’t surprising. The entire house was possessed of a palpable air of absence. 

Hannibal cooked too much that night. He and Winston both dined on veal and pork sausage, and Winston licked the sauce from his bowl until it was spotless. 

*

Will didn’t sleep on the plane. Part of it was the knowledge of what was waiting for him in DC, but most of it was the possibility of airing his nightmares in public. He chose exhaustion and walked off the plane in Dulles with a mist around him made up of stifled dreams and the ghosts of his past. 

Beverly met him at baggage claim. He blinked at her, unsure for a moment if she was real. 

"I was going to get a cab," he said. 

She hugged him tightly enough around the middle that his breath left him with an unfortunate squeak. "Don’t be stupid," she said. 

"I didn’t tell anyone when I was getting in." 

"I work for the FBI. It was super hard to figure out." 

He smiled down at her. "Okay. I’m glad to see you." 

"Good, because you’re staying with me." 

"I have hotel reservations." 

She gave him a look that repeated her earlier statement about his intelligence. "I have a guest room. You don’t want to stay at a hotel."

"I was pretty sure I did." 

"You associate them with crime scenes. We all do. It’s basically the only reason we ever get to go anywhere. Come on." 

She grabbed his bag and started walking. He trailed after her. She was right. Crime scenes and his childhood, neither particularly good associations. 

Beverly slung his bag into the back of her car, which was parked just outside baggage claim, guarded by airport security. 

"Nice abuse of power," he said as he got in. 

"When you travel with Katz, you travel in style. What do you want for dinner?" 

"I’m not really hungry." 

"Great, we’ll get pizza and I’ll eat it all." 

"Beer. Coors." 

"You drink shitty beer," she said. 

"I missed it. Kind of hard to get in France." Impossible if you lived with Hannibal Lecter. 

"You really like it there?" she asked. 

"It’s warm. You can feel the sun." 

She made a face. "You came back just in time for early winter. The temperature’s dropping and it’s supposed to rain for the next forever." 

"At least you’ve got shitty beer." 

She smacked his arm. “Charley will be glad to see you.” 

“You kept him?” 

“I wasn’t going to. I even took him down to the shelter.” She cut across three lanes of traffic and pulled in between two semis. “I thought he should go to someone who doesn’t work all the time.” 

“But?” 

“They said he was too old and they’d have a hard time finding him a family and was I sure I didn’t want to keep him and then he _looked_ at me …"

"Yeah, that's how they get you," Will said. 

*

He did eat pizza in the end, more than half once he got started. He’d eaten Hannibal’s packed lunch during a five hour layover in Munich and nothing since then. He and Beverly sat next to each other on the sofa while she flipped channels. Charley put his head on Will’s knee and looked at him soulfully until Will scratched his ears. 

“That’s the look,” Beverly said. “He knows exactly what he’s doing. Don’t give him any pepperoni.” 

Charley shuffled over to lean against her leg. She sighed and bent down to kiss the top of his head.  

"Seems like you two get along pretty well,” Will said.  

“We do okay. I don’t know how you coped with seven. How’s Winston? Who’s watching him for you?" 

"A friend," he said. 

Beverly glanced over at him. "A friend, huh? Did you learn French?" 

"A little, but he speaks English."

"Neighbor or something?" 

"Yeah, he lives pretty close. He’s not the best with dogs, but Winston’s always been well behaved. I think they’ll be all right.” 

"What’s his name?" she asked, too casually. 

"I’m not telling you his name.”

“Why not? What am I going to do, quiz Interpol about him?”

He just looked at her. 

“I would never,” she said. She took a bite of pizza. “You’re all alone over there. We worry about you.” 

“We?” he said.

“Everyone. Okay, everyone except Zeller.”   

“You don’t need to worry. He’s just a guy. He’s fine." 

She studied him, pizza slice sagging in her hand. 

“What?” he said. 

“You like him,” she said. 

“I wouldn’t leave Winston with someone I didn’t like.” 

“You’re defensive of him.” 

“You’re treating this like an interrogation,” he said. 

She looked away. "I watched you go off the deep end, and that was our fault – my fault – and now you won’t tell us anything and you expect me not to worry? I don't even have a mailing address for you. I'd have to bribe someone in HR just to send you a Christmas card.” 

He turned toward her, unsure how to take that. He hadn’t thought anyone would care that much about keeping in touch. Charley nudged at his hand, and Will scratched his ears, grateful for the distraction. “It wasn’t your fault I got sick,” he said. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault.” 

“It was my fault I didn’t notice.” 

“You barely knew me.” She barely knew him now, though she seemed determined to change that. “I wasn’t your responsibility. I’m not your responsibility now.” 

“I’m just saying, you’re not alone. Or at least you don’t have to be. And I express concern by being nosy and bossy. Get used to it.” 

He smiled. “Okay. Still not telling you his name. Don’t harass my neighbors.” 

“Your mysterious neighbor who’s teaching you French and who you trust to take care of your dog.”

“Who said he’s teaching me French?” 

“But he is, isn’t he? I don’t buy that you’re learning on your own so you can chat with the locals.” 

“Maybe,” Will said. 

She looked at him, considering. “Well, good. I’m glad you’ve got a friend over there."

The TV cycled around from an ad for fabric softener to an ad for the ten o’clock news. _The Candlelight Killer adds a local woman to his body count. Sources at the FBI confirm the connection based on—_

Beverly stabbed at the remote until she got the mute button. “Sources at the FBI,” she muttered. “Like hell.” 

"Your case?" Will asked. 

"Yeah. We just got it.” She glanced at him and then back at the TV.

"Is Jack going to ask me about this?" 

"Not if I can stop him?" 

He looked at the crime scene tape on the television and then looked away. He didn’t want to know the details. He didn’t want to see. "I’ll let you try," he said. 

She squeezed his shoulder. "Good." 

He couldn’t imagine that she’d succeed, but it meant something that she’d make the attempt. 

*

An hour later, he was alone in the guest room, unpacked, his suit hanging in the closet. He took out his laptop, checked his email, and hesitated. It was nearly three in the morning in France. Will didn’t know if he wanted to risk having the call ring out because Hannibal was sensibly asleep. He already felt isolated, despite the sounds of Beverly still moving around in the kitchen, clinking dishes and running water. 

He thought of Hannibal washing the breakfast dishes that morning while Will finished packing. They’d said almost nothing to each other. 

He pulled up Skype and made the call. 

Hannibal answered almost immediately. He was bare chested, hair soft, eyes cast in warm shadows from the lamp behind him. He lay in bed, covers pulled up and computer balanced on the pillow beside him. Something in Will’s chest hurt when he looked at him. 

"Hi," Will said. He felt winded. 

"Are you well?"

"I’m here. Flight went okay. I’m staying with Beverly."

"You had a hotel. You never checked in." 

"Of course you checked. She picked me up at the airport. How’s Winston?"

Hannibal redirected the computer to show Winston at the foot of the bed. His tail thumped once in his sleep and lay still again. 

"You’re not supposed to let him on the bed," Will said. He’d left so many places behind in his life, but never one that felt like home before. 

"He doesn’t listen to me."

"You haven’t even tried." 

"He misses you," Hannibal said. "I didn’t think it was possible, but I’m hardly inclined to anthropomorphize your animals, and I’ve never seen him behave as he did today.” 

"What was he doing?"

"A systematic search of the house and grounds. The rooms from the top down, the yard in a more or less spiral pattern. He paid particular attention to the edges of the pond." 

"Are you sure he wasn’t just looking for frogs?"

"No," Hannibal admitted. "He did find some. And he was easily distracted with food." 

"What did you make for dinner?" 

“Veal and pork sausages. Smothered cabbage with onions and sherry vinegar. How was your lunch?"

"It was good, thanks. I ate in Munich."

"Did you find a pleasant view?"

There had been a note included with the lunch instructing him to find somewhere to eat that wouldn’t disrupt his digestion with surroundings that jarred the eyes or ears. He’d wanted to keep it, but shredded it and flushed it instead. The FBI was too familiar with Hannibal’s handwriting, and accidents happened. 

"Will?"

Will gave him smile that felt on the verge of cracking. "It was fine. I watched the planes take off. What did you do all day? Have you been to the new house?" 

Hannibal looked at him steadily for a moment and then began to speak. He talked about letting Winston search the new house too, about the tomato plants that had grown unaided in the disused garden, about the color of the pond water, the sunlight on the walls, the cracked tiles on the kitchen floor. 

"I will go into town to choose new ones tomorrow. And I’m having the stove professionally installed," he said.

"You can’t rip out the whole floor because of three broken tiles." 

"Seven. And what is the alternative? Live with them as they continue to disintegrate? They are decades old. There will be no chance of matching the pattern."

"Three. The other four are barely chipped."

"Call it three then. My point stands." 

"Can’t you get some that sort of match? Or blend in or … something?" 

"I’m certain I can have the work completed before you get back."

"That’s not the point," Will said. "It’s a waste."

"It’s my money to waste." 

"It’s our house. Hell.” He rubbed at his eyes. “Are we really arguing about tile?" 

"Yes. And it’s my kitchen. You agreed." 

Will sighed. "Yeah, okay. It’s your kitchen. You’re right." 

Hannibal paused. "Perhaps I could find someone to copy the pattern. It is only seven tiles, and they do suit the feel of the room." 

"Isn’t that kind of thing expensive?"

"It is still my money. Incidentally, the man is coming in the morning to install the air conditioner for the kitchen." 

"You didn’t wait long for that." 

"I saw no point in waiting." Hannibal readjusted the screen and left his hand on the edge of it. Will could see tendons standing out with the strength of his grip. "Did you sleep on the plane?"

"No." 

"You must try at some point." 

Will slumped down against the pillows. "I know." 

"Lie down. Leave the connection open." 

"It’s okay, you don’t have to—"

"I will be awake for some time in any case. I’ll end the call when you fall asleep." 

"Okay." 

Will set the computer on the beside table and shuffled down under the covers. He switched off the light. He could hear Hannibal and Winston breathing an ocean away. Hannibal didn’t talk to him. He just picked up a book from the pile he kept next to the bed and bent over it. Will watched him read for a few minutes, as he did almost every night, and his eyes closed on their own. 

*

Will drove out to Wolf Trap the next day. The familiarity of his old house came as an illogical shock. It had only been a few months; of course it wouldn’t look any different, but he felt as if it ought to be crumbling, as if his own ghost should haunt the attic and wander the fields at night. 

Just as well it didn’t. He had to get it on the market, and persistent specters probably weren’t a selling point for most people. 

He let himself in and looked over the floors, the baseboards, the walls. He knew it was structurally sound, and the water heater was only a year old. The dogs had scratched up the wood floor in places, but he could fix that. Well. Three weeks. He’d probably have to pay someone else to fix it. The baseboards should be painted. 

All his stuff had to go, either to France or to charity or out with the trash. The last time he’d moved, everything he owned had fit in a suitcase and three boxes. Now he had furniture. 

He made a half-hearted start on packing up some of the fishing gear and then went out to take a look at the barn. One glance at the interior convinced him it would have to be sold as it was. It would take days to clear out and no sane charity would want any of his collected junk. The new owners could trash it if they wanted to. 

A car pulled up. Will heard the ghostly echoes of his dogs running to meet it, but he didn’t follow them. He stayed where he was and placed mental bets: Jack or Freddie? 

"Graham! I have been calling your hotel every five minutes, I thought you got kidnapped or something. Again. Where the hell were you?" 

Freddie wore a scarlet skirt suit and a tiny round leopard print hat. She walked briskly toward him through the mud with no care for her bright red heels. 

"Nice to see you too, Lounds."

She joined him in the doorway of the barn and put her hands on her hips. "No, seriously. Where the fuck were you?" 

"Beverly picked me up at the airport and told me I was staying with her." 

"You couldn’t have called?" 

"I try not to talk to you on less than six hours of sleep."

"Fine, valid point, but you could’ve emailed or something. What are you doing out here?" 

"I have to sell the house."

That seemed to bring her up short for a second. "You’re really not coming back? You’re just going to live in _France_ forever?"

"What’s wrong with France?"

"Does anyone even get killed over there?" 

"Low murder rates are usually considered a plus when you’re looking for somewhere to live."

She stepped past him into the barn, whipped out a flashlight, and started poking into the dark corners. "Aren’t you bored though?" 

"No."

She looked over her shoulder and wrinkled her nose at him. "I’d be so bored. Is there anything interesting in here? Was Lecter ever in here?"

"In my barn? No. What would he be doing in my barn?"

"I don’t know. Storing body parts ideally. You don’t have to sell it. We could give tours." 

"Hannibal’s been to my house twice. Once to feed the dogs and once to break your wrist and slice open my back." 

"Oh, good point! The tour should be of the house. And we could say—”

"No."

She affected a pout, though her eyes were amused. "You’re so boring, Graham." 

"That’s why I’m not bored in France, despite the low murder rate." 

“So you’re just leaving all this stuff? You can’t take it all to France, right?” 

“I’ll take the fishing gear. Probably not much else.” 

“Hey, what’s this?” She ducked into a corner next to the freezer and came back with his rifle. 

"What’s it look like?"

"You don’t want it? Can I have it?" 

He took it from her and set it against the wall. "No."

"Why not?"

"Can you shoot the gun you’ve got? Did you ever get lessons?"

"They make you take a course before you can get a concealed carry permit." 

Will eyed her. "Yeah, they do. Do you actually have a concealed carry permit?" 

"I could have one." 

"Do you?" 

"Maybe. Not. So what?" 

"Do you have a gun on you right now?" 

"You’re not a cop anymore, Graham." 

"Let’s see it." 

She took it out of her purse and held it up. "Look, I took lessons, okay, Dad? I know how to shoot it and clean it and all that. I just didn’t get the permit." 

"It wouldn’t be that hard. Virginia’s a shall-issue state." He gestured toward the door. "Show me." 

“No. What for?”

“So I’ll know you’re not going to shoot your foot off,” he said. 

"Are you actually worried about me?"

"Yes." 

She studied him for a second with an uncertain expression and then strode past him, shoving her purse against his chest as she passed. "Fine. Hold that and tell me what to shoot." 

She’d clearly gotten some training. One of the three cans he set up for her went flying with a metallic ping. 

She frowned. "I was doing better on the range."

"How long has it been?" 

"A few months."

"You have to keep in practice." 

She shot him an irritated look. “I guess you’re going to show me how it’s done now?” 

"I haven’t fired a gun since I shot Abel Gideon. And I wasn’t that good to start with." 

"Then what’s with the high and mighty act?" 

“In all the time I was a cop, I never once saw a civilian successfully use a firearm in self defense. Statistically speaking, you’d be better off with a baseball bat.”

“That’s encouraging,” she said. 

"If you’re uncomfortable with it, you shouldn’t carry it. If you’re not prepared to use it, you shouldn’t carry it. That’s all I’m saying.“ 

"Sometimes you actually sound like a cop." 

"Thanks." 

“It wasn’t a compliment. Okay, so I’ll practice. Are you offering lessons?"

"No. Try Cade. His scores were good.” 

"Cade doesn’t like me anymore." 

He leaned against the side of the barn and watched her reload. "What’d you do to him?"

"Nothing! He just stopped returning my calls."

"Something must’ve happened."

"Yeah, I slept with him." 

"Something other than that."

She gave him an odd look. "Plenty of guys don’t need any other reason to stop calling, Graham." 

He watched her take aim and take out another one of the rusted cans. 

"I know what you mean though," she said. "I would’ve thought that gigantic stick up his ass had _thou shalt call the morning after_ written on it somewhere. Whatever." 

Will’s phone rang. He recognized Jack’s number on the caller ID. "Hello?"

"Will. Welcome home." 

"Thanks." 

Jack hesitated for nearly a second, maybe weighing courtesy against the imperative of murder. Murder won. "Got something for you to look at." 

"Is that Crawford?" Lounds hissed. "Tell him we have a schedule! You are not here to look at bodies. I don’t want you all fucked up when we go on The Tonight Show." 

_The Tonight Show?_ , Will mouthed at her, something close to panic ringing in his ears. 

"Will, you with me?" Jack said. 

"I’m here."

"Will you come? It’s close."

"I’ll look at it. I’m not promising anything." 

Will took down the address. "The Tonight Show?" he said to Lounds when he’d hung up. 

"Was it Crawford?"

"Yeah, he always calls the morning after. You didn’t say anything about television. You said interviews. You said press conferences." 

"You’re a big deal, and Hannibal the—”

"Don’t."

"Fine. _Dr. Hannibal Lecter_ is an even bigger deal. The two of you together are the deal of the century."

"The century’s barely started. People will find something better to talk about."

"Hope not," Lounds said cheerfully. "We are going to make the New York Times bestseller list. We might make it to number one. Christopher Goffard can suck my dick." 

"Who?"

"Pulitzer Prize winning – oh, never mind. Where are you going? The Candlelight Killer crime scene?" 

Will returned her purse. "Clean your gun. I’ll call you later." 

"Is that a promise?" she called after him. 

"Yes." 

*

Jack met Will at the tape barrier and lifted it for him to duck under. He clapped Will on the shoulder and then pulled him into a brief, rough hug, which took Will so much by surprise that he didn’t even consider returning it before it was over. 

"You look better," Jack said. 

"I feel better." 

“Before we do this, I want to know how much of what happened to you before was the encephalitis. If it hadn’t been for that, you would’ve been all right?"

"The encephalitis didn’t put me in a psychiatric institute for three months, Jack." 

"No, that was Lecter." 

"Part of it was Lecter." 

Jack looked at him with such concern, and Will knew it was real concern. He also knew that Jack always came down on the side of the victims. There was no point in making him wade through guilt to do it. 

"You didn’t force me to come here," Will said. "Show me." 

The body was gone, removed to the BAU lab sometime last night, but Will could see its shade lying at rest on the satin lining of the polished coffin. 

"They all had coffins?" Will asked. 

"Yeah. We’ve traced them to a lot bought from a defunct funeral parlor seven years ago. The guy who bought them had a fire in his warehouse two years ago."

"You think the killer set the fire and walked off with the leftover coffins?" 

"There was a moving truck in the neighborhood that night, but it dead ends there. No one saw the coffins being moved, no security cameras. Nothing." 

Will paced around the coffin. Dark wood reflected the shadows of those who stood around it. He moved in its slick surface and so did the killer. Placing the body just so. Flowers on her breast. Candles. He saw the wax drips. 

"He took the candles with him, or was that forensics?"

"Him. Also the same as previous crime scenes. Nothing remarkable about the wax. He could’ve bought them anywhere." 

So why take them away with him? The same candles for each woman. What happened when the candles burned too low?

Will looked at the coffin. "Was the top open or closed when you found it?"

"Closed." 

"Have you looked for blood?"

"Not yet. There were no recent wounds on the body."

Jack called for luminol. They switched off the lights. One word glowed on the inside of the lid: _BABYLON_. 

The room breathed around Will, and the scene came alive. He watched the killer cut his finger, lie down in the place where he intended his victim to rest, and write this signpost for her to read. He saw the red of blood in place of the blue glow of luminol, and his stomach lurched with memory. 

He turned away, back and head both aching with tension. He shoved his hair out of his eyes and thought of Hannibal cutting it in the middle of the night, the quiet snick snick of the scissors. Hannibal saying he preferred it long. Hannibal holding him on the couch and telling him fairy tales until he fell asleep. His breathing slowed little by little. 

"Well, that’s something," Jack said. 

"It’ll be the killer’s blood, not the victim’s." 

"I’d like you to attend the autopsy." 

Will nodded wearily. "When?" 

"I’ll give you a call." 

"I’ll make it if I can, but that’s not why I’m here," Will said. 

"You don’t think this is a little more important than your book tour?" 

Of course there was nothing to say to that. He’d just have to hope they didn’t conflict. The Tonight Show. Fuck. 

He made his excuses and was about to make his escape when he noticed someone watching him from the shadows near the door. Cade stepped forward with his hand extended. 

"It’s good to see you, sir," he said. 

Will shook his hand and took in the harder set of his face, the tension between his eyes that presaged a frown line. Will nodded to him and gestured him outside into the late afternoon sun.

"Bad case?" he asked. 

"They’re all bad," Cade said. 

"Does Jack still have you trying to get in their heads?" 

Cade nodded. 

Will looked up and down the street and spotted a drug store. "I’m going to buy some aspirin. You coming?"

"I’ve got aspirin if you want, sir." 

"I think I’ll need my own." 

They walked down to an aging Rite-Aid and wandered the aisles. 

"You can request a transfer," Will said. 

"I’m just starting to get good at it. I caught the last two. But this guy … I don’t know. I’m glad you’re here."

"How often is he taking them?" 

"More often now. He’s escalating. We’ll probably have another one before you leave. Are you coming to the autopsy?" 

For a moment, he looked like the hopeful young man Will had left behind. Will sighed inwardly. If they had anything on this afternoon, Lounds would have to rearrange it. 

"Yeah," he said. "I’ll be there."


	2. Chapter 2

Hannibal pulled on his new leather boots and followed Winston out the door and down the long dusty drive toward the road. Red-gold light clipped the tops of the cypress trees and bled out across the fields beyond. If he looked back, he would see their house stained with it. The thought made him smile. Blood in the mortar to strengthen the set of the stones. 

They turned left when they reached the road. Winston ranged forward and back, nose always down in the long summer grass. He snapped at bees and butterflies and made an occasional rush back to thrust his cold nose against Hannibal’s palm. Hannibal had seen him do the same with Will. 

He had slept late deliberately, tuning himself more closely to Will’s time zone. Hoping, though he didn’t care to admit it, for another call, even another chance to watch Will fade into sleep with his hand still outstretched toward the keyboard. He had cooked too much again at breakfast. The solitary habits of a lifetime had taken only months to crumble into irrecoverable ruin. 

Winston barked sharply and nosed at something in the road. 

"No," Hannibal said firmly, fearing it was roadkill. "Come, Winston. Come here." But Winston ignored him as he nearly always did. 

Whatever it was, Winston hadn’t started eating it or rolling in it. Hannibal approached. At first, he thought it was a clump of mud or clay left behind by one of the tractors that crawled past from nearby farms, and then it raised its head, looked up at him, and yipped. 

Hannibal regarded it. The puppy’s coat was crusted in mud, but it wagged its little stub tail hard and waddled closer to him. Winston wagged his tail as well and barked and danced a few steps, as if he expected praise for his discovery. 

Surely it couldn’t be a stray. People usually looked after puppies more carefully than that. They were either kept safe or deliberately discarded or killed. It might perhaps have escaped, but not from anywhere nearby. Their neighbors were farmers with serious dogs, working or hunting dogs, nothing like this small mop of fur. It sniffed Hannibal’s shoe. 

He could nudge it to the side of the road and leave it. He could take it to the animal shelter, though not until morning. He could, of course, break its neck, which might be kinder than leaving it on its own. Will had become worryingly adept at seeing through his deception, but he didn’t have to mention the encounter to Will at all. 

He took a step back and crouched down to look at the creature more closely. It wouldn’t be that much trouble to look after it for one night. And Will would be so pleased that he’d done even that much. 

He wanted Will to be pleased with him. That realization had spent months bubbling up through the tar pit of his emotions. Now in sunlight, it shocked him into paralysis for a moment. Even when he was able to move again, to unfold his handkerchief and wrap it around the puppy so that he might carry it without muddying his clothes, his mind remained still and quiet under the weight of unwanted knowledge. 

He walked slowly back toward the house. Winston followed close on his heels, seemingly undisturbed at having their walk cut short. He jumped up once or twice to sniff at the bundle under Hannibal’s arm. The puppy seemed happy with its situation and did not wriggle or try to bite. It laid its head on his wrist and licked once at the back of his hand. 

When he reached the house, he put it into the bathroom and shut the door. In the kitchen, he poured himself a glass of wine. Two sips and then he recalled Will’s instructions: refill the water bowl after a walk. He did that and then got a dish for the puppy as well. If he was going to keep it for the night, he couldn’t mistreat it. After a minute spent watching it lap eagerly at the water, he returned to the kitchen and diced some leftover goose, both for it and for Winston. He fed Winston in the kitchen and the puppy in the bathroom, but Winston lay down at the bathroom door when he was done eating and sniffed at the crack. He looked as if he meant to stay. 

Hannibal refilled his wineglass. He took it out into the back garden, shut the door behind him, and stood there for a moment before he drained half the glass in two long swallows. 

*

Will called Lounds from a rest area on the highway between the crime scene and Quantico.

"No problem," she said, when Will explained about about the autopsy. "We haven’t got anything till tonight."

"What’s tonight?" 

"Nothing big, don’t worry. Got a suit?"

"Yes." 

"Is it plaid at all?" she asked. 

"No, it’s not plaid. What are we doing? Were you really serious about The Tonight Show?"

"Yeah, but not for a couple weeks yet. Do you know Crime Boss?"

"No."

"It’s a cable show, not huge, but pretty good, especially with this demographic. They’ll want the gruesome details, all you’re willing to provide. That lecture you were doing before you dropped off the face of the Earth is about their speed, just shorter and snappier. They’ve got that picture of you I took." She almost sounded apologetic. 

"It’s fine," Will said. "Everyone’s seen it."

“A lot more people are going to see it, so be prepared. And send me a text with whatever you think you’re going to wear." She hung up. 

Will stuck his phone back in his pocket. He bought a limp turkey sandwich at the gas station and ate it as he drove. He wanted to call Hannibal. 

It would be almost dinnertime in France, around the hour when Hannibal assembled his ingredients and started chopping. Sometimes Will helped and sometimes he watched and sometimes he wasn’t even in the room, but he was always aware of it: the sounds, the smells, the intense satisfaction and ease that radiated from Hannibal when he cooked. 

He glanced at his phone, but in the end he kept driving. He’d call when the day was over, when he could relax. 

Jack had put his name on the guest list for the gate at Quantico. Will checked in, got his ID, and found his way to the lab. Beverly, Zeller, and Price were gathered around the autopsy table. Jack and Cade framed them on either side. Jack’s arms were crossed over his chest, eyes intent on the body. Cade leaned against the bank of cooler doors. He watched the body from the corner of his eye, like he’d rather not look at all. 

"Sorry, mission failed," Beverly said to him with a brief wave of her gloved hand. 

"I could’ve said no." 

Zeller gave him a short nod. Price squinted at him. "You look a lot better," he said. "I was going to recommend heavy drinking before you left, but it looks like moving to the south of France is a better bet. The stomach contents are the same." 

"In the body," Zeller said. "The stomach contents of the body are the same as the previous bodies is what he’s trying to say. Steak, potatoes, and asparagus, heavily laced with ketamine. The steak was rare. She died pretty quickly. It’s barely digested." 

"Candlelight, flowers, and a steak dinner," Will said. 

Zeller nodded. "So romantic if you overlook the coffin."

"How long before death did he remove the tongue?" 

"He had her for about a day before he broke her feet. The tongue came out two days later, but that’s variable," Beverly said. "It was one day after with the first victim and five with the one before this. But after that, it’s the same." 

"Their last supper," Cade said. "He bathes them while they’re still alive." He looked at Zeller. "How much do they feel after he gives them the drugs? Do they know they’re going to die?"

"Unconsciousness within ten minutes. They probably go out while they’re still eating. They don’t know a thing." 

"He doesn’t want them to suffer," Will said. 

"Then he probably shouldn’t cut out their tongues," Zeller said. 

"He had to. They weren’t saying what he wanted to hear. They weren’t speaking his language." 

"Babylon," Jack said. "The Tower of Babel. Communication."

Will nodded. "He wants them to understand, but they can’t. He wants a connection. He breaks their feet when they try to run. He might even give them the chance to run, to prove themselves worthy by choosing to stay with him. He cuts out their tongues because they don’t provide the responses he needs. He’s looking for understanding." 

"Lookin’ for love in all the wrong places," Zeller said under his breath. 

"He’s trying to change them into what he needs them to be," Will said. "Or what he thinks he needs." 

It hurt his chest and the back of his throat to think about it. It was too easy to imagine Hannibal bathing his unconscious body, bringing him flowers and one last meal. 

*

The image lingered like an infection. It was still there that night when Lounds drove him a studio in DC and a man with a waxed mustache tucked tissues into the neck of his shirt and brushed powder over his face, "For the shine." 

"Remember," Lounds told him. "Just answer the questions and let me talk about the book. Don’t volunteer anything. Your ideas of what people want to hear are terrible." 

"I don’t tell people what they want to hear. I tell them what they should know." 

"And that's your problem right there. This isn't a classroom, it's entertainment." 

"It shouldn’t be."

"Prime example of what not to volunteer." 

The first part of the interview went fine. The host asked questions that Will had answered a hundred times before, to Jack, to his students, to audience members in the lectures he’d given. It wasn’t until close to the end that things started to fall apart. 

"How did it feel when he had you tied down to that table?"

Will frowned. "How do you think it felt?" 

The host gave him a small smile, which Will was learning to interpret as irritation. "Did you think he was going to kill you?" he asked. 

"No."

"Why not?"

"I understood his motivations." The lights glared in Will's eyes. The set, with its bare concrete floor and bulletin board of blank-eyed mug shots, reminded him of an interrogation room. 

"He’d killed other people,” the host said. “A lot of other people. He hadn’t killed you up to that point, but serial killers are unpredictable." 

“Most serial killers are intensely predictable. They have a compulsion toward a certain set of behaviors, and they rarely deviate from it. If they weren’t predictable, we’d never catch them." 

“Most? Not him?”

Will shifted in his seat. “Lecter isn’t … typical. But I didn’t believe he’d kill me.” 

"Weren't you afraid?" 

"Of course I was afraid."

The host leaned toward him, as if scenting blood. "But not that he’d kill you?"

"He could’ve done a lot worse," Will said. 

"Some people might argue that he did do worse. Will you ever be able to forget him? To move on with your life?" 

Will blinked into the blank eye of the camera as it moved to focus in on him. He could feel the still-healing tracery of lines that Hannibal had given him before he left, feel Hannibal’s body astride his hips as he cut into him and soothed the pain with careful touches. And afterward, falling asleep with his head on Hannibal’s chest and waking in the morning to find Hannibal hadn’t moved at all. 

He shook his head and looked down, choked for a moment by the idea of _moving on_ , of never seeing him again. 

“No,” he got out finally. “No, he’s with me forever.” 

"I’m sorry, Mr. Graham," the host said, and then with barely a pause: “Ms. Lounds tells me you plan to donate your share of the profits from the book to the families of the guards Lecter killed at the hospital when he abducted you?"

Will turned slowly to face Lounds. "You told him that?" 

Lounds frowned at him. "Was I not supposed to?" 

"Did it ever occur to you that those people might not want money from the guy who got their father killed?” 

"You didn’t kill those men,” she said. 

"I might as well have." 

The host cleared his throat and directed the conversation onto safer topics. Lounds talked about writing the book, the research, Hannibal’s other victims. Will sank into the mire of the past. He could see their faces. He’d known their names. 

Afterward, he pulled Lounds aside. “Can you get them to cut that part about the money?” he said. 

“It’s good publicity.”

"I just wanted to help them. I didn’t want them to worry about where it came from or if they should feel bad about taking it."

She sighed. “I guess I could try to get it cut from the TV broadcast, but that was live to the internet. Their most dedicated fans, by which I mean total nutjobs, have already seen it.”

“There’s still a chance the families won’t.” 

“I’ll talk to them, okay? First thing tomorrow when the executive producers crawl out of their cave.” 

He eyed her, wondering if she’d follow through or just say she had and blow it off. “This is important to me.” 

“God, fine. What do you want, a contract signed in blood? I’ll do my best. Cross my heart and hope to lose my domain name. Go get some sleep, you look like shit.” 

* 

The guest bed creaked faintly every time he moved. He’d been up to get water once, to use the bathroom twice, to raid Beverly’s freezer for frozen French bread pizza, to get his computer out and put it away again. At one in the morning, he gave in and launched Skype. 

Hannibal answered almost immediately, though he had clearly been asleep seconds before. His eyes had that soft look, and his voice was rough from lack of speech. Will wondered if he talked to Winston at all. 

"Hi," Will said. 

"It’s late."

"Early for you." 

"What happened?" Hannibal asked. 

"Doesn’t matter. Don’t watch a show called Crime Boss, okay?" 

"Will I feel the need to hunt someone down?"

Will smiled a little. "It wasn’t anyone’s fault. Except maybe mine."

"Will. Tell me what’s wrong.“ 

He shook his head. Shouldn’t have called. The last thing he needed was to rehash it, and Hannibal’s understanding was making his throat ache. "Sorry I woke you up." 

"I’m not."

"What’d you do yesterday?" 

A pause. "I rescued a stray dog, as it happens," Hannibal said. 

Will blinked at him a couple of times. "Are you being serious?"

"Very. A puppy. Winston found it while I was walking him. I mean to take it to the shelter this morning." 

Will still didn’t feel like he was processing this conversation correctly. "Can I see?" he asked. 

"You don’t believe me?"

"Of course I believe you. I just want to see."

"Very well. It’s in the hall bath.” 

The screen went unsteady as Hannibal stood and carried the computer down the familiar hallway. 

"You’re sleeping in the new house," Will said. 

"Yes. All the necessities are here now. We will need more furniture, but I have the bed we chose, a chair, a table for the garden. Enough for the moment. I could wait to get more, but I suspect you don’t care what I choose."

“I care a little. It’d be nice if the whole place wasn’t decked out like a museum." 

"The style I pursued in Baltimore wouldn’t suit this space. You don’t need to worry about that. And I had thought you could do what you saw fit with the back room." 

"The one that looks down toward the pond?"

"Yes. An office, perhaps, since you insist on continuing to consult for Jack." 

Will paused and thought about telling him about the most recent consultation with Jack, but the opening of the bathroom door and the excited yipping that followed drove the thought away. Hannibal aimed the camera and Will stared at the puppy as it bounced and panted. 

"Hannibal, that dog needs a bath." 

"They can bathe it at the shelter." 

"Look how the mud’s dried. Its legs are practically stuck together. Just rinse it off in the sink." 

There was a long, long silence from Hannibal, which the puppy filled with snuffling and the sound of skittering nails on tile. Winston woofed and came bounding over to join it. They nosed at each other, tails wagging. 

"Come on," Will said. "Ten minutes of your life. It’ll make me feel better." 

"Will you sleep afterward?" 

"I’ll try. Use that soap you got at the market, the unscented one. And don’t forget a towel. And scissors. Some of those clumps might need to be cut out." 

Hannibal turned the computer so that he could direct his most unimpressed expression toward the camera. Will smiled at him, some of the poisonous taste of the interview and autopsy slipping away. 

"I’m glad I called you," Will said. 

Hannibal sighed. "Then I suppose I must be glad as well. Let me leave you in the kitchen for a moment while I collect my supplies." 

Hannibal set the laptop on the window ledge above the kitchen sink, aimed slightly down so that Will would have a good view when the time came. He was back in five minutes to set out his mise en place of towel, soap, scissors, and dog treats. 

"You’re wearing my shirt," Will said. 

"I don’t want to get mine dirty." 

"I wasn’t complaining. Looks good on you." 

Hannibal gave him an irritated look that softened into something else almost immediately. He turned to collect the puppy. 

"Boy or girl?" Will asked, while Hannibal set the puppy in the deep sink and tested the water temperature. 

Hannibal picked it up to check. "It is female," he said. 

"She’s cute. They should be able to find her a home pretty fast. Everyone wants puppies. Is she house trained?" 

"I don’t know." 

"Did she pee on the floor last night?"

“Judging by the smell, yes." 

"You probably want to do something about that when you’re done here." 

Hannibal regarded both Will and the puppy with equal parts ire and resigned irritation. "I will." 

Will couldn’t stop his grin, and it stayed on his face while Hannibal wet the puppy’s fur, worked in the soap, and rinsed and rinsed and rinsed. 

"I think there was more dirt than dog," Will said. "I swear she’s smaller than she was a minute ago."

"Perhaps she will wash away entirely." 

"Don’t be like that. She likes you." 

Hannibal had fed her, hadn’t scared her, and his hands were gentle now as they freed her from the worst of the mud clumps. Of course the puppy liked him. Dogs were easy like that. 

She seemed to like the water too, licking at the stream where it fell from the tap and making no attempt to escape. Not that any attempt would’ve been successful – the sink was deep, and she was a very small dog – but she didn’t try scrabbling at the sides, which was just as well. Hannibal had strong feelings about that sink. He’d ordered it from Florence. 

"You need to wash her butt too," Will said. Hannibal didn’t look at him or even acknowledge that he’d spoken. "Come on. You were a doctor. This is not any worse than other stuff you’ve done.” 

"The things one does in pursuit of a goal are not things one would willingly do otherwise." 

"But you’ve got a goal. Get me to go to sleep and stop bothering you, right?" 

Hannibal looked up at that and met his eyes for just a second. "Yes. Of course." 

He washed the puppy’s rear. He worked the soap through her coat a second time and rinsed her clean. She wasn’t trying to escape, but she didn’t have much interest in staying still either. Hannibal kept her in place with gentle touches, corralling hands, nudging her lightly where she needed to be, lifting her up, keeping the water and soap away from her eyes and mouth. 

"You’re pretty good at that," Will said. 

"I have watched you. And it’s mostly common sense. I have helped bathe insensible patients before as well. It’s far more difficult than this." 

"I’ll bet." 

Hannibal finished up and wrapped her in the towel. He held her against his chest, against Will’s now-mud-spattered shirt, and rubbed her until she was only damp instead of dripping. 

"You can put the towel down for her," Will said. "She’ll roll on it probably." 

Hannibal did, and the puppy did. She also darted around the kitchen, rubbed herself against the kick boards, tried to get through into the hall, and then rubbed up against the bottom of Hannibal’s pajama pants. When he picked her up, she shoved her face against the shirt to dry her ears. Will had to put a hand over his mouth to stifle laughter. 

"One moment," Hannibal said, and disappeared in the direction of the bathroom. He returned almost immediately, still holding the puppy. "I believe I must leave you. She’s left quite a mess to clean up in there." 

"You’d better let her out or you’ll have a mess to clean up in the kitchen too." 

"Will you sleep now?" 

Will smiled at him. "I’ll do my best. Thanks for humoring me." 

Hannibal just nodded. "Good night, Will." 

"Good morning." 

Will ended the call and closed his eyes. He drifted off with the image of Hannibal in his mind: dirty frayed T-shirt, wriggling puppy clutched to his chest, face soft and creased with recent sleep. 

*

The next morning, he found Beverly sitting on the couch, wrapped around a large mug of coffee. She peered at him through her hair. "When’d you get in?"

"Late. Anything with television cameras takes forever, apparently." 

"How was the interview?"

Will shrugged. "Do you want eggs?" 

"I’ll eat anything I don’t have to cook." 

Will got eggs out of the fridge and found bread for toast, the squishy white kind that Hannibal refused to acknowledge as bread at all. Will had sort of missed it. "Do you have chives?" 

"Do I seem like the kind of person who regularly has chives lying around? Since when do you even know what to do with chives?" 

He shrugged. "I have a lot of time on my hands. And I got used to … I had dinner at his house a lot." 

She shambled over to him and squeezed his shoulder. "Lots of people cook. Nothing wrong with that. What else do you do there?"

"I got a house. I’ve been fixing it up." 

"I guess that explains the tan and the extra muscles."

The tips of Will’s ears went faintly warm. "The roof needed a lot of work." 

"Are you moved in now?"

"Sort of. Not quite. Still needs furniture. I’ve got a bed and a chair."

"Isn’t that basically what you had in Wolf Trap?"

Will poured eggs into the pan to scramble. "I wasn't that bad. This place doesn't even have bookshelves yet." 

He could build them pretty easily. Assuming Hannibal hadn't bought something from the eighteenth century by the time he got home. 

They ate eggs with cheddar cheese and toast. After the meal, Will called a cleaning company about the house and headed over to pack up the rest of his things. 

The fishing gear all fit in the car. It might be awkward to ship, but at least it didn’t weigh much. He looked over the books with regret as he walked along the shelves. No way to take them all. He piled the forensics reference texts on the bed. He'd need them, and most of them weren't available in ebook form. A few more seemed worth pulling: books he'd had since college or longer and read five or six times. Many were now crumbling at the edges, but he didn't want to leave them behind. 

He set his china dogs on top of the pile. Gifts from past co-workers or students, he wasn't that attached to them, but he couldn't wait to see Hannibal's face when he lined them all up on the kitchen windowsill. 

A quick survey of the house produced nothing else he felt he needed. For as long as he'd spent in the place, for as many things as he'd acquired, his life here had a temporary feel to it in retrospect that disturbed him. He didn't know what he'd been waiting for, but he was pretty sure it wasn't what he'd found. 

He headed down to the basement for a last check of the shelves there and to find a box for his books. The box was no problem; he had a bunch left over from when the FBI had released his belongings from evidence. They were all stacked under the stairs, covered in dust and the odd spider, mostly labeled in Beverly's handwriting: _kitchen, towels, clothes, knives._

One of them, in a different hand, had been labeled _family_. 

He stopped and pulled it free from the pile. It was still full, as he'd known it would be. He'd packed this one himself, years ago, when he'd picked up his father's effects. He tried to recall its contents: his father's birth certificate, social security card, pocket knife, wallet, ancient John Deere baseball cap. 

Once upon a time, his father had kept a picture of Will's mother in his wallet, the only picture of her that Will had ever seen. He hadn't looked for it, just packed everything away like he could forget his family had ever existed. He'd done a pretty good job of that. 

He pulled open the lid of the box and started unpacking it onto the floor. Upstairs, he heard a car pull into the drive and stop. It was early for the cleaning crew. He hoped it wasn't Lounds. He didn't want company for this. 

"Mr. Graham?" a voice called.

"Basement," he called back. "Door's open." 

His hand, groping down between layers of yellowed paper, found his father's wallet. The leather had dried and cracked. He pulled it out and opened it. Credit card, gas card, a few bucks in cash … and his mother. She wore a blue dress and smiled at the camera. 

Footsteps came down the stairs. He turned and saw a man in gray coveralls. "Mr. Graham?" the man asked. 

"Yeah." He waited, but the man didn't say anything else. He just stood there. 

Will wrenched his attention away from the photo. There was something off about the way the man held himself, something off about the solemn expression and the silence, something about the three spots of white on the cuff of his sleeve. Something like candle wax. 

Will jerked to his feet, but too late to avoid the blow to the side of his head. He dropped the wallet and the photo. His mother smiled at him as she slid into a pool of water. The paper warped, and the world faded away.


	3. Chapter 3

Will’s head throbbed with his heartbeat. In his dream, it was the pounding of surf against sand. He and Hannibal walked side by side with the Atlantic rushing to cover their feet and the long swell of the slate gray rollers just visible out past the breaking waves. It grew louder and louder until he could no longer hear what Hannibal was saying. Will reached for him. At the first touch, Hannibal crumbled away like sand. 

Will woke in the dark on a concrete floor. He had fallen, but not far. He skimmed the floor with his palm and found a small camping cot, maybe a foot off the ground. He’d bruised his shoulder and hip, but that was nothing compared to the ache in his head. He touched it carefully and felt a swollen area crusted with blood. 

No hint of light penetrated the room from any side. Will felt along the wall, stood, dizzy in the dark, and edged around the perimeter. He found a door, but no door knob. He traced the outline of the door from top to bottom. His fingers could find no padding under the door, which meant the hall outside was likely just as dark as the room. 

The exploration didn’t take long. He sat on the cot. His phone was gone, of course, along with his keys and his glasses and his wallet. He sat still and tried to think and then he bent to unlace his shoes. A garrote wasn’t much of a weapon, but it was better than nothing. 

*

Hannibal had put Winston and the puppy out into the garden with water and food while he tended to the mess in the bathroom. After that, the kitchen had needed attention, and then he had been very much in need of a shower. When he was clean and dressed, it had been time for lunch, and he hadn’t yet had breakfast. He had checked on the dogs after he ate and found them both napping in the shade. 

The shelter could wait, at least for a few hours and possibly until tomorrow. He retreated to the room that would become his study with a glass of wine and his tablet. He’d intended to find Will’s appearance on Crime Boss, but checked TattleCrime first out of habit. 

The headline marched across the top of the page, black and bold: FBI CONSULTANT ABDUCTED BY CANDLELIGHT KILLER? Will’s picture stared at him from the sidebar.

Hannibal’s anger was usually a cold thing, controlled and channeled and put to good use. Exercised, after a decent period of time, on those who deserved it. This hot rage was something entirely new. 

It blinded and deafened him, and he recalled himself only when the pressure of his thumb snapped the rim of his crystal glass and his blood dripped down to stain white wine to rosé. 

He took a quick breath, blinked, and scanned the article. It did not provide much information beyond the headline, though it did reveal Ms. Lounds’s agitation in its brevity and excessive use of adverbs. Her normally precise writing style suffered either from excitement over the publicity for her book or concern for Will’s wellbeing. For the moment, Hannibal did not care which. If the former, he would have a word with her later.  

He made airline reservations online, packed a bag, and found a kennel that would board Winston and the puppy until his return. Three hours later, he got on a plane that would land him at Richmond late that evening. 

He ate nothing on the flight and slept poorly. The drive to Will’s old house dragged. As the night road passed by, tiger striped by the streetlights, he was forced to consider that he had no idea what he would do once he got there. Call Jack, perhaps. Offer his aid, consultation on the phone. But that might simply distract Jack from Will’s case as resources were directed toward apprehending Hannibal. Unacceptable and, more than that, Hannibal wasn’t certain how much help he would be. He did not have Will’s gift. 

He parked the rental car well off the road and walked the final distance to Will’s house. The area was fenced off with police tape, but it was unguarded. He found the back door open and walked into the kitchen. 

Freddie Lounds jumped at the sound of the door and then spun around to point a gun at him. "Who is it?" she said. "Turn on the light. It’s—"

"By the door. Yes, I know." He switched it on and was momentarily gratified to watch her face go from pale to white. For a moment, he thought she might faint. 

She steadied herself with a hand against the counter. "Was it you? Did you take him?" 

"No. I came to find him." 

"Why would you?" 

"Because he is mine." 

"Well, he’s not here. So just – just go, okay?" She gestured toward the door with the gun.

"I’m afraid I can’t do that, Ms. Lounds. You shouldn’t be so surprised to see me. It was your article that brought me here, woefully brief though it was. I think you were holding something back. Perhaps a detail that Jack asked you to conceal?" 

"I don’t know anything." 

Her aim had started to waver though nerves and the strain of holding her arms outstretched. Hannibal took a step closer. 

"Why did you come here tonight, Ms. Lounds?"

"To see if I could find anything."

"Then for the moment we share the same goal. You would do better to put that away before I take it from you.” 

“Like hell. You’ll kill me.” 

“I feel sure Will must have warned of the dangers of having your own weapon used against you."

She stayed as she was, still pale, feet set apart and legs braced for the pistol’s kickback. Her finger hovered just inside the trigger guard. 

“You’re worried about him,” Hannibal said. 

“I’m more worried about me right now.” 

"The bargain Will struck for your life still holds unless you give me fresh reason to dispose of you. Right now, I would like your help." 

“Me? What do you want my help for?”

"I need information from the FBI. Clearly, they’re not disposed to give it to me."

"They’re not real disposed to give it to me either." 

"But they are not entirely opposed either. There is precedent. You have worked with them before. And you have a great deal of skill in finding out things that people don’t want you to know."

“You’re serious? Us, working together?”

“Needs must when the Devil drives, Ms. Lounds. I have made less appealing compromises in my life, and I’m sure you have as well.”

She hesitated a second longer and then lowered the gun and stuck it back in her purse, all in one sharp motion. She waited, eyes wide, like he might go for her throat after all. When he didn’t, she pushed her hair back over her shoulders and pulled a tube from her purse to refresh her lipstick, hands nearly steady. 

“Maybe,” she said. “I’ll let you know when we’re done, assuming I still have all my internal organs. Go look at the basement to start with. You should see it." 

"Then I’m afraid you must come with me." 

"I’ve seen it." 

He gestured toward the basement door. "Don’t force me to state the obvious, please." 

She went ahead of him, switched on the light at the foot of the stairs, and stood off to one side. "I’m not going to double cross you," she said. "I’m not stupid." 

"No, you’re not. You are quite intelligent and, like most intelligent people, you are accustomed to thinking you will emerge victorious from any battle of wits. Those who know themselves to be stupid are much safer companions." 

"But boring."

"Yes, of course. Dreadfully dull. I don’t imagine you’ll be that." 

He surveyed the room, the bare floor with the drain in the middle, uneven so that pockets of water collected here and there. A few boxes sat on shelves against the wall. A fragment of paper had stuck fast to the floor near the edge of a puddle. A small smudge of dried blood stained the rough concrete. 

Ms. Lounds took out her phone and showed him a picture. In it, a photograph sat half in the puddle, soaked through, and a cardboard box lay on its side nearby. 

“It’s all at the lab now,” she said. “I only got the one picture before they chased me out. Do you know who the woman in the photo is?” 

Hannibal expanded that portion of the picture and studied it. The woman had dark curling hair and Will’s uncertain smile. Hannibal stared at her and found anger rising up inside him for more reasons than he was willing to examine. 

“I believe she is Will’s mother,” he said. 

Will had come back for his past, despite its ill treatment of him. If he had let it go, the killer might not have found another opportunity to take him before he returned to Hannibal’s care. 

“Can I have my phone back?” Ms. Lounds said. 

Hannibal looked down at his thumb pressing into the screen, the same one he had cut on the wine glass. He eased his grip and handed it back to her. "Tell me all that you know,” he said. 

"He was taken from here. There’s security camera footage from the nearest gas station of a white van that they believe was used to transport him. The same tire tracks were found at one of the Candlelight Killer’s crime scenes."

"A summary of this killer, please." 

"Keeps his victims for a week to ten days. Breaks their feet, cuts out their tongues, feeds them a romantic dinner of steak, potatoes, and ketamine before laying them out in a coffin with flowers and candles. That’s all I know, and I don’t think the FBI knows much more. Crawford got Graham in to consult on the case."

Will hadn’t mentioned that, but he wouldn’t. Hannibal crossed the basement, examined it from every angle, but he had to admit that this was likely fruitless. He did not have the FBI’s equipment and he did not have Will’s ability to see out of another’s eyes. 

He did see some things: desperation, anger, disconnection. This killer sought after human contact and did not traffic in cruelty as he had himself. A psychopath, but not a sadist. Someone seeking to fill an internal void with ritual that would, in the end, prove meaningless. 

But why Will, and why now? 

"What did Will say during the interview last night?" Hannibal asked. "Did he speak about this killer?" 

"How do you even – no. He talked about you." 

"What did he say?" 

"The usual. Do you want all of it?"

"I want the unusual." 

"He yelled at me for spilling the beans on the book contract, that he wants to give his part of the profits to the families of the guys you killed at the hospital when you were breaking him out." 

"Unsurprising and probably unrelated. What else?" 

"He said …" Lounds paused. "The host asked if he’d ever be able to move past what you did. He said you’d be with him for the rest of his life.” 

Hannibal couldn’t contain the smile that brought to his face and so he used it, turning it on Ms. Lounds like a knife. She flinched from it. "I imagine that’s true," he said. "Suppose our killer was watching that interview. What do you think he would take from it?" 

"That you can force connection on someone. That love can last forever."

"That it can be inescapable. Yes." 

Silence in the grim concrete box of the basement. The walls watched them with empty eyes, and the blood on the floor listened to their every breath. 

"Do you think he loves you?" Ms. Lounds asked. 

"Love is only a word, Ms. Lounds. Its meaning is so nebulous as to be completely meaningless. I believe, as he does, that we share a connection. What is more relevant is what this killer believes."

"He’s only taken women up till now. Graham doesn’t fit his victim profile." 

"So perhaps he isn’t looking for a partner this time, but for a teacher." 

"So what does that mean?" 

"It means that we may not have a week or even a day before he decides Will cannot help him."

*

Will had slept in the dark. He didn’t know it until he came back to himself again, expecting to wake in his bed at home with Hannibal beside him. No, the guest room at Beverly’s apartment. No. Here, in this black hole of a room where he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face or tell whether his eyes were open or closed. 

But something had woken him. He heard movement. A house then, not a warehouse or apartment building. Only smaller structures creaked in that particular way under a single person’s weight. 

He heard the opening of a door, the descent down wooden steps, and it was such a relief that he bent over to sit with his face in his hands. He had known logically that he wouldn’t be left in the dark to die of dehydration or madness, but the fear had hovered constantly at the edge of his rational thoughts. 

At last, he saw light under the door. Something was pushed in through the crack. The footsteps retreated. The dark returned. 

Will felt his way over on hands and knees and groped along the bottom of the door. His fingers touched a piece of string. He pulled until he found the end of the slack and then pulled harder. Something caught with a metallic clink on the outside of the door. He pulled again. The door swung slowly inward. 

He thought of the women, of their escape attempts, the broken feet. The killer must be watching. Infrared cameras maybe. Will knelt inside the door and felt around outside it. He found water and a granola bar in a plastic wrapper. 

"Thank you," he said to darkness. He drank the water and ate the bar – and then he carefully set the bottle and empty wrapper back where he’d found them. 

He waited, but there was no sound except for the faint drip of water somewhere, not even the creak of boards above him. Nothing to show he was not completely alone. The temptation to run pulled at his stomach. He was stronger than the previous victims, almost certainly better trained. But the killer would have accounted for that. Will might step out into a bear trap for all he knew, or onto broken glass. The killer might be waiting with a gun. He killed his women with ketamine. That didn’t mean he had the same fate in mind for Will. 

An escape attempt now would be stupid. He knew that, but retreating back into the room was still one of the hardest things Will had ever done. He shut the door and pushed the string back out into the hall, and then he sat with his face in his hands once again. He could taste his pounding heartbeat at the back of his tongue, acrid with fear. 

*

Freddie Lounds drove Hannibal back to the motel where she was staying. On the way, they stopped at Burger King, which was the worst meal Hannibal had eaten since he’d broken Will out of the hospital. 

Ms. Lounds kept looking at him as he ate. "What does it taste like?" she said finally. 

“You’re eating the same thing I am.”

“You know I don’t mean the fries. Can I get a quote, on the record?" 

"How would you obtain such a quote, given that you have not seen me in over a year?" 

"I could say it was from that night. That I was holding it in reserve."

"You would have put it in the book."

"Yeah, okay, I would’ve. I still want to know." 

"It tastes like any other meat, Ms. Lounds. The variances are distinct, but subtle. If the taste were peculiar or in any way remarkable, my guests would have noticed."

"Did anyone ever ask you about it?"

"Never. A palate so discerning is a rare thing indeed. If any of my guests possessed it, they put the difference in taste down to preparation."

She shook her head. "Amazing. You got away with it for years. When’d you start?"

"I don’t recall granting you an interview."

"Can’t blame me for trying."

"I can." 

The ride was silent after that. 

In her room, she set him up with her computer and what research she’d gathered on the Candlelight Killer. He read through it line by line and found nothing that stood out from the basics she’d already given him. 

"We need more information," he said. "We need to know what Jack knows." 

"Welcome to my life. Easier said than done." 

"You must have people who will talk to you." 

"I sort of burned my bridges there." 

Hannibal thought back to one of Will’s rants when he’d got off the phone with her. He’d mentioned something. Someone. _She’ll eat him alive._ "The trainee Will was working with. What about him?" 

"Cade? I’m not calling Cade, that’s a bad plan. How do you even know he exists?"

"Do you think I don’t watch over Will? I would have thought my presence here proves otherwise."

"Were you right here the whole time? Did you ever even leave the country?" 

"Call him. Unless you have a better proposal, in which case share it by all means." 

"And say what?"

"Be charming."

"It’s hard to be charming when you want to smash someone’s face in." 

He gave her a pleasant smile. "And yet I am managing it, and so will you. Please, Ms. Lounds. Make the call." 

She pulled out her phone and stabbed at the screen, glared at him as it rang, but then her face smoothed over and a saccharine smile spread across her perfectly scarlet lips. "Danny, hi. It’s Freddie. How have you been?" 

There was silence while she listened. Hannibal could hear his voice, raised and quick, but not his words. 

"Well, you didn’t call either," she said, smile gone. "Don’t tell me what I said, I know what I said. I was there. You think—” 

More silence. 

“Zeller’s a prick. I’m not dignifying that with a response. No, look – Cade, shut up! I’m calling about Graham, okay? There’s no one else I can ask. I’m worried. Can’t you tell me anything?" 

Her eyes narrowed as he began to speak again. 

"What name?" she said. "No, I’m not going to print it.” Another pause. “Seriously, fuck Zeller. You’re taking his word over mine?” She held the phone away from her ear and looked at it. "Fuck you too," she said and tossed it onto the bed. "He hung up on me." 

"A name?" 

"They got DNA from the last crime scene and they’ve got a match. They’re trying to find the guy. He wouldn’t give me the name. Obviously. It’s amazing he told me that much since he clearly thinks I’m going to slap it up on the internet.”

"Yes, how dreadful it is to deal with those who know us so well." 

She frowned at him. "I’ve interviewed a hell of a lot of killers and that is the most self-aware thing any one of them has ever said." 

"My association with Will led me to a number of realizations about myself. I hazard that yours has done the same for you, though you would prefer not to acknowledge them."

"Both of you can keep your hands off my psyche. It’s fine the way it is. What are we doing next?" 

"We need that name. Is there anyone else you can speak to at the BAU?" 

"Lots of people I can talk to, no one who’s likely to talk to me." 

"I assume you can’t access their computer system."

"No, because this isn’t a nineties hacker movie." 

"Then we must pay a visit to your friend, Agent Cade."

"He’s not going to be any more cooperative in person." 

"People have told me many things that they would have preferred to keep to themselves."

She edged backward on the bed, though there was really nowhere to go. Her teeth scraped over her bottom lip. "You’re talking about torture." 

"Nothing excessive."

"But you don’t need to. They’ve got a name now. They’ll find him. He’ll be fine." 

"I need to find him first. I want Will safe, yes, but I also mean to punish his abductor, and the FBI will not do that."

"They’ll stick him in a looney bin for the rest of his life. That’s not enough?"

"Ms. Lounds, it does not even begin to come close.”

She stared at him, pale once more, mouth tight. "Let me try again," she said. "We’ll go to his place. I’ll talk to him." 

He nodded and gestured toward the door. 

*

Hannibal watched silhouettes move against the light in Agent Cade’s apartment. Cade had let Ms. Lounds inside after a short argument, which they now appeared to be continuing. Hannibal had wondered if letting her go in on her own was the wisest course, but she was most likely smart enough to see that betraying him was not in her best interest and, besides that, she was not inclined to ask anyone for help. And so he waited. 

They moved away from the window, and he lost his only connection to the situation inside. After a moment of consideration, he switched to the driver’s side and put the key into the ignition in case they needed to leave quickly. He focused on the dark street, the sidewalk, the door of the apartment building. He did not allow himself to think of Will. 

The building door opened. Freddie Lounds ran out, yanked open the car door, and flung herself into the seat. "Go, fast," she said. 

Hannibal pulled out smoothly onto the empty road. "Do you have what we need?"

"Yeah. Turns out this is a nineties hacker movie because his password is the date he graduated from Quantico. I got the name and the last known address. The guy isn’t there anymore, but he was living with his mom, so we can talk to her. She must know something. Mothers always do." 

"The difficulty will be in convincing her to share that."

"Let’s not jump straight to torture this time, okay? I did pretty well, right?"

"You did. This time, however, I will come in with you." 

"Fine, just don’t say anything creepy." 

It was astonishing how much she sounded like Will at times. Hannibal drove to the address she gave him and said nothing at all. 

*

Will crouched in the dark next to the door. He’d slept again and pissed in the far corner of the room. He could still smell it. His head throbbed, and he felt dizzy when he tried to stand. He didn’t know how much time had passed. 

He might’ve made a mistake in not trying to escape. He didn’t fit the killer’s victim profile and might not be subject to the same rules. The room pressed in around him. Between the smell of mold and stale piss and rot, he was forcibly reminded of his cell in the hospital and of the abandoned asylum where Hannibal had strapped him down and left him. Alone. In the dark. 

He could hear his own heart and nothing else. He put his hands over his face and grabbed at his hair. He wondered if anyone knew he’d been taken yet. Had it been on the news? Did Hannibal know? 

He raised his head and stared into the dark. Hannibal would come for him. He needed to get out before that happened. 

*

The address was a crumbling apartment building in a part of Baltimore that had fallen from its former glory, used condoms in the gutter, broken glass and broken traffic lights. Freddie Lounds looked sadly at her car. 

"Are you sure you don’t want to stay here and gut anyone who tries to steal it?" she said. 

"I will come with you."

"We should’ve taken your rental." 

He followed her up two flights of stairs. She knocked on number 204. No answer. "Mrs. Drake?" she called. "I saw your lights, Mrs. Drake. Can we please come in, just for a minute? It’s about your son." 

Shuffling footsteps approached the door. A crack appeared, and a tall woman with iron gray hair tied under a red bandana looked out at them. "I’ve already talked to the police and the FBI. I don’t know who you are, but I’ll tell you the same. Leave Walter alone."

"He’s a good boy," Ms. Lounds said. 

Mrs. Drake’s forehead creased. "Of course he is."

"That’s the usual line. My son wouldn’t do those things. He’s a good boy. You didn’t say it though." 

"Don’t have to say it for it to be true." 

"No, of course not." Ms. Lounds smiled at her and held out a card. "Ma’am, my name is Freddie Lounds. I’m not with the police. I’m a reporter. I’m interested in your story. Could we come in, just for a minute?" 

"I’ve got nothing to tell you about Walter."

"I’m not here about Walter. I’m interested in you." 

"Me?"

"It must be hard to have your son under suspicion of such horrible crimes, especially if you know he’s innocent. I think that’s a struggle people would like to hear about." 

Mrs. Drake hesitated. She glanced at Hannibal, and he prepared himself for introductions, an altered accent, a false name, but then her attention was back on Ms. Lounds, and she swung the door wide to let them in. Hannibal wasn’t accustomed to being dismissed. He didn’t particularly enjoy the feeling. 

Mrs. Drake led them to a sagging floral sofa. She provided over-sweetened tea and packaged cookies. Ms. Lounds spoke to her at length about her past and Walter Drake’s childhood. While Hannibal could admit it was necessary, it was also deadly dull.

His attention drifted. He didn’t know if this killer bound his victims. He thought of Will tied down in the abandoned hospital in North Carolina. He thought of Will’s screams. Will had said he would dream of that night. He might be dreaming of it now. 

"What’s he for?" Mrs. Drake said sharply, as Hannibal shifted on the couch. 

Ms. Lounds gave him a warning nudge with her elbow. 

Hannibal wondered if there were any way to impress upon her the delicate nature of her position without damaging her past the point where she could be useful to him. Probably not. 

“Don’t worry about him,” Ms. Lounds said. “He’s just my assistant. Did Walter give you a lot of trouble as a child?"

"No, no trouble. He was a very quiet boy." Mrs. Drake was looking down at the mug in her hands. "Always very quiet." 

"You never knew what he was thinking," Hannibal said. Ms. Lounds elbowed him more sharply in the ribs. He caught her arm and squeezed until he heard her hiss of pain. 

Mrs. Drake noticed nothing. She didn’t answer, just held her tea closer to her face. 

"That must’ve been hard," Ms. Lounds said, voice only slightly strained by Hannibal’s fingers bruising her arm. 

He made himself let go. This was the correct approach, and she was more likely to succeed at the moment than he was. He wanted a target, and this old woman stood between him and the creature who had taken Will. He doubted his own control once he got his hands on her, even without a blade. 

The raw emotion he felt discomfited him. He needed to master it, but he did not want to master it. He wanted to unleash it entirely. 

"Mrs. Drake," Freddie Lounds said. "I’d really like to help you. You don’t want people to misunderstand your son, do you? You don’t want to let the FBI demonize him." 

The old woman shook her head slowly. She tucked a loose strand of gray hair back behind her ear. "I never knew what he was thinking," she said quietly. 

Hannibal and Freddie Lounds looked at each other, a brief glance, both of them in momentary alignment with the taste of victory near. They both knew the importance of silence in the extraction of information. They waited. 

"He had a place he liked to go to think," Mrs. Drake said. "That’s what you want, isn’t it? That’s what the FBI wants too. They asked if I knew where he was, and I don’t, but I know where he likes to go." She looked up from her tea. "I’m not a fool, Ms. Lounds. I know you think he killed those women just like the police do."

"I just want to find out the truth, Mrs. Drake."

"Would you talk to him? If you could? Or would you tell the police? I don’t think you’d tell the police. You’d rather take a risk and get the story yourself."

"I would very much like to talk to your son. I’d like to tell his story, too. But Mrs. Drake, I wasn’t lying when I said I was interested in your story. I’m just as interested in you as I am in your son." 

She radiated such honesty that even Hannibal had difficulty seeing the cracks in her facade. If there were any to see. Perhaps in the moment she was as fully convinced of her own sincerity as the woman caught in her spell. 

"I’m not sure he’s a good boy, but he is my son," Mrs. Drake said. 

"Anything you say to me is in confidence. I won’t pass it onto the police, you have my word." 

"There’s a house," Mrs. Drake said. "An abandoned house. I can give you the address." 

*

Will slid in and out of the basement room, now back in his cell at Chilton’s hospital, now listening to Hannibal drive away and leave him strapped to a bed in the darkened asylum. The pressure of the silence made him feel sick. He panted against the nausea that climbed up his throat. The sound of his own heart became sinister and alien. 

When he finally heard something, it jolted him up off the cot and against the wall. Footsteps again, coming down the stairs, coming down the hall. A sliver of light under the door. Will stared at it, greedy for any sensory input that might cancel out the workings of his imagination. 

The door opened a crack and then wider, three inches, a foot, enough to reveal the man standing in the doorway. With the light behind him, Will couldn’t see his face, but he was tall, well over six feet, broad and thick-chested with wiry hair, blond that was bleached to green by the fluorescents overhead. An axe hung from his hand. 

The glint of light off the blade was the orange-red of a candle flame, and something clicked together in Will’s head. The faint echoes of a nursery rhyme that had been tugging at the back of his brain since he’d seen the word written on the inside of the coffin: _How many miles to Babylon? Three score miles and ten. Can I get there by candlelight? Yes, and back again. If your feet are nimble and light, you can get there by candlelight._

"You’re looking for Babylon," he said. 

The man took a step forward and crouched in the doorway. Light fell across his face. His eyes were green, his lips thin and pale. He tilted his head and regarded Will like a dog. 

"You’re looking for someone to go with you," Will said. "But you’re not having any luck. And time’s running out, isn’t it? How low have your candles burned?" 

"Low," the man said. 

"You burn them while your – while the women eat their last suppers. You burn them on the coffins."

"To light their way." 

"What about your way?" 

"My way is dark." 

"Are you looking for a guide? Is that why I’m here?" 

"You understand him. Hannibal the Cannibal. You know him. You speak his language." 

"Yes. Is language hard for you?" 

The man was silent for a long, long time, whole minutes with the resurgence of Will’s pulse loud in his ears. 

"If they could know me," he said. "If I could make them know me." 

"If your tongue was nimble and light," Will said and saw the flash of rage before the man rose to tower over him. "They try to run when you want them to stay," Will said quickly. "So you break their feet. They speak, but they don’t understand, so you take their tongues." 

The man settled back down with a nod. 

"Where did you see me?" Will asked. "With the FBI? At the house where you left the coffin?"

"The internet.” 

The interview. Where he’d talked about Hannibal, about Hannibal being a part of him forever. 

"You can’t do that with just anyone," Will said. "It has to be the right person. The right time."

The man fingered the haft of his axe. His shoulders were rounded forward in a perpetual stoop. The skin under his eyes drooped. "How do you find it?" he asked. 

"I don’t know."

"Lying. Tell me." 

Will thought of ritual and sacrifice, of a thousand and one stories he might tell to keep himself alive. He couldn’t do it. He felt the loneliness and disconnection as if they were his own, because they had been, and he knew that whatever he said wouldn’t truly be believed. 

"It’s chance," he said. "It’s luck. Or fate. It’s nothing I did, nothing he did. Nothing you can do. I’m sorry." 

The man’s head sank down to hang between his broad shoulders. His fingers drummed on the blade on the axe. 

"What’s your name?" Will asked. 

"Walter Drake." 

"I’m Will."

"I know." 

"Walter, people are looking for me. You know that, right?"

"Your friend on the show.”

"Yeah, she’s probably looking for me."

"And the police. The FBI." 

And Hannibal. Will glanced toward the open door. If the FBI found him before he got out, he couldn’t imagine the hostage negotiation going well. If Hannibal found him first, it would be a bloodbath. Freddie Lounds had become his best option, and that was a terrible thought. He had to move soon. 

"They were looking before, but they know more now," Will said. "They found the message you wrote on the inside of the coffin lid. Did you write that in your own blood, Walter?" 

Walter nodded, slow and ponderous. 

"Do they have your DNA on file?"

"There was a man I didn’t kill who they thought I did. Years ago. I never killed a man." 

"Why not?" Will asked, curious despite himself. 

"They can’t walk lightly enough." 

"Does that mean you can’t walk lightly enough?" 

There was no anger in Walter’s eyes this time, only grief as he caught hold of Will’s hair and bashed his head against the concrete wall. Will’s vision darkened and spun. 

Walter pushed him down and grabbed his legs. He clamped Will’s ankles under one arm. The shoes, without their laces, came off easily. The blunt butt of the axe head smashed into the bottoms of Will’s feet. 

"Lightly," Walter said. "Nimble and light."


	4. Chapter 4

Will’s head throbbed, a solid lake of pain that ate away at his ability to think. His feet were worse. He curled into a ball on his side and reached down to touch them. They had swollen so badly that he could feel none of the bones beneath the skin, even the unbroken ones, and there couldn’t be many. Walter had smashed them until Will blacked out. 

Time passed. Once, he drank water that had been left for him. He wondered if he should’ve run while he’d still had the chance. Walter might have caught him. Walter might’ve killed him. But he might have gotten free. Running was out of the question now. 

He thought about his body laid out in a coffin with flowers and candles to guide him toward Babylon. Ketamine and a steak dinner. Everyone died eventually. He could and had imagined much worse fates. 

His hair fell in his eyes, dirty and damp with sweat and sticking to his skin. He pushed it back and thought of Hannibal. Of what Hannibal might do if he found him dead. Where he might choose to distribute the blame. Walter would get his fair share, but Hannibal would be so angry. One life wouldn’t be enough. 

The seconds ticked by, unmeasured in the dark. He sat up and swung his legs down over the side of the cot to set his battered feet on the floor. He pressed through the pain and violent nausea that gripped him, but even after he’d emptied his stomach and waited for his vision to clear, he couldn’t stand. His feet couldn’t physically hold him anymore. 

He looked toward the door. The light still shone underneath it, so Walter was still out there. Will fingered the shoelaces in his pocket. He’d have to get Walter close. Very close. Get them around his neck and hang on. And then he’d have to crawl. 

*

"We should call Crawford," Ms. Lounds said. 

"No." 

"The police. Someone. Someone should know. You can’t just go in there by yourself. What if you fuck up?"

"I will not."

"But what if you do? That’s what fuck up _means._ Nobody does it on purpose."

"If I’m not out in a reasonable amount of time, you can call Jack."

"What’s reasonable?"

"Fifteen minutes."

"That is more than enough time to get both of you killed and, while the thought of you dead makes me want to dance, I am weirdly attached to Graham." 

"His safety is my priority. I will do nothing to put him in more danger." 

She let out a small frustrated noise between her teeth. "Fine. I think this is a terrible idea, but fine. What are you going to do? Knock? Bust the door down?" 

"I will examine the property when we arrive and find the most appropriate access point. Will is likely being held in the basement. It would be the easiest to secure.”

"Assuming he’s even there, which we don’t know."

"The location is ideal. There would be room to store the coffins. Enough space around the property that no one would hear his victims. It is the sort of place I would choose myself." 

"I don’t know what I hate more, being trapped in a tiny car with the scariest man alive or not being able to quote anything you say." 

"I certainly hope you will survive the experience." 

"Okay, now I know which I hate more." 

*

The door cracked open, and the light poured in. Walter stepped inside. He was carrying a candle. It had burned more than halfway down already, and the wax trailed over its sides. A drop fell on Walter’s hand. He didn’t flinch. 

Will stayed as he was, curled on his side, playing dead. 

"I brought water," Walter said. "Sit up." 

Will didn’t move. 

"Sit up. Speak. Have you gone without me?" The pain in his voice pulled at Will, despite everything. 

Walter put a hand on his shoulder and shook it. The movement jarred Will’s feet, and he was hard pressed not to cry out. Walter moved closer, bent low over him, and then Will moved. 

He had the shoelaces wrapped around his hands, and he looped them around Walter’s neck in one motion, wrists crossed, pulling the laces taut. Walter reared back with a bellow, and Will nearly lost his grip. He hung on and was lifted up off the cot and then thrown aside. His back hit the wall with a thud that knocked the breath from him. 

He and Walter both wheezed for air, and then Walter turned toward him, drawing back the axe. His lips came away from his teeth in rage. Will still had the shoelaces gripped tight in one hand. He whipped them into Walter’s face as the axe came down and rolled at the same time. The axe hit the concrete floor with a dull clang. It rebounded hard and went flying across the room. 

Walter came for Will with his bare hands, one eye closed where the shoelace had caught him, tears streaming down his face. 

"Why?" he asked. "Why?" He reached for Will’s neck. 

Will locked his hands together into a single fist and belted him across the jaw. He jammed the heel of his hand into Walter’s good eye and yanked him forward by the hair, head first into the wall. Walter went down. He was groaning, still semi-conscious, but not moving. 

Will scrambled from the room on hands and knees. He got the door closed behind him but could find no way to lock it. Ahead of him, he saw the stairs and crawled toward them. Behind him, he could hear Walter trying to rise. 

*

Hannibal had Ms. Lounds pull the car off the road, off the driveway, and finally into the backyard, entirely out of sight. No other car was parked nearby, but there was a garage. No light shone from the house, but he could see paper lining most of the windows. 

"Stay here," Hannibal said as he opened the door. 

"That’s what Graham told me last time." 

"I will not hesitate to kill you if you get in my way. I’m certain he didn’t tell you that." 

He closed the door before she could reply, patience finally at an end. He circled the house. He could smell car exhaust on the air and the faint smell of cooking. Someone was here or had been here recently. He could not smell Will. 

The front door was locked, all the windows closed and locked as well, some boarded up. The back door had paper over it on the inside, but he could see a hint of light around the edge. He listened for some time and heard nothing. He tried the door: again, locked. And then, from somewhere inside, he heard a cry of pain. 

He took a step back and kicked the door in. The wood splintered around the lock. A battery powered lantern glowed on the counter, and he took it with him as he moved from room to room. Empty, all empty. 

Sounds of a struggle came from below. He heard an outraged bellow. He found the basement stairs. That door was locked as well, and he cursed as he rammed his shoulder against it. He couldn’t hear Will. The first cry might’ve been his, but certainly not the second. The door bowed inward but wouldn’t give. Barred from the inside. 

He stood back, panting. He needed a tool, something that might fit through the crack and let him lift the bar, but by then it might be too late. He forced himself against it one more time. His shoulder protested. It was likely to give before the bar did. 

As he backed off to try again, the door swung slowly inward. 

Will knelt at the top of the stairs, shoelaces clutched in one hand like a weapon. He had blood on his face and a bruise on his jaw, but he was alive. Relief momentarily froze Hannibal’s lungs. 

Will looked up at him. “You got here faster than I thought you would,” he said. 

Hannibal lunged for him and picked him up, held him tight in his arms with his eyes closed and every sense focused on nothing else. He heard Will’s tiny sound of pain. 

"What is it? What did he do to you?" 

Will shook his head. ”I’m fine, just get me out of here. I can’t walk." 

Hannibal looked down and saw Will’s feet in the dim half light, misshapen and mottled with bruising. He bit down on his anger once again. This was not the time. 

"All right. We’re going." 

Will’s grip on his neck was so tight it was nearly strangling. Hannibal breathed him in and wanted to touch him all over, to taste him, to know for certain that he was safe. Will smelled of the basement where he had been kept, of mold and blood and fear. Hannibal paused in the kitchen to press a kiss to his temple. 

"Don’t stop," Will said, looking back. "We need to get out of here.”

There were footsteps coming up the stairs behind them. 

Hannibal stepped through the kitchen door, out onto the back porch. Behind him, he heard a rumbling crash. He jerked sideways just in time and pressed against the side of the house as a large man barreled through the door.

Hannibal got them both over the porch railing. It creaked, and the man, presumably Walter Drake, turned toward them. One eye was swollen shut, and blood streamed down his face from a wound on his forehead. He had an axe in his hand. 

Drake rushed them. He tumbled over the railing with a wordless shout and swung the axe. It whistled through the air an inch from Will’s thigh. Hannibal jumped back. 

Will was struggling now. “Put me down! You can’t fight him like this!”

Hannibal gripped him tighter and wished absently that he would be still. Letting go of him so soon was unthinkable. 

Drake stumbled toward them again. He rubbed at his swollen eye and swung his head from side to side like he was scenting the air. 

Hannibal watched him, waited till his good eye was turned away, and stepped in to kick him in the head. The kick connected, but Drake turned like a snake and grabbed his ankle. Hannibal fell, and Will went down with him. 

Hannibal got in another kick and rolled free. He looked around for Will, and a chill gripped his chest when he did not immediately spot him. He thought it might be fear. 

“I’m here,” Will called. “I’m fine. Watch out!” 

Drake had gotten to his feet and was lumbering toward Hannibal again. 

Hannibal got up on one knee. He calculated distance, leverage, and vulnerable points. He could break the wrist that held the axe. It shouldn’t be too difficult after that, except that he needed Drake alive so he could pay for what he’d done. Another blow to the head might be one too many. A chokehold would be best. 

He waited. Drake broke into a run. 

Gunshots echoed across the overgrown lawn. Drake took one more step, staggered, and fell. 

Hannibal stared at him for a second, and then he was on his feet and moving. He caught Freddie Lounds by the throat. 

“If he is dead, you will follow him,” he said. 

She jammed the barrel of the gun under his chin, hand shaking. Her mouth was open, but she couldn’t make a sound. Hannibal watched her face. He wondered if she would pull the trigger.  

“He’s alive,” Will said. "She got him in the shoulder." 

Hannibal jerked his attention away from her to locate Will, and spotted him next to Drake, fingers on his pulse. He must have crawled over to check on him. The axe lay inches from Drake's hand. 

Hannibal crossed the ground between them as quickly as he could without running. He kicked the axe aside. It disappeared into the bushes and clunked against the side of the house.  

Will glanced up at him and then looked over at Freddie Lounds. “Are you all right?” he asked her. 

She nodded, one hand at her throat. “Think so. Are you?” she asked. 

“I’m fine. Go wait by the car. Everything’s going to be okay.” 

“This is the opposite of okay, Graham.”

“I know. Go on. Just trust me. Please?” 

He smiled at her, soft and reassuring, and Hannibal wanted that smile for himself. He wanted every one of Will’s expressions, every breath and every heartbeat to be for him. 

“You really want me to leave you with him?” Freddie Lounds said. 

Hannibal turned toward her. Will put a hand on his ankle. “Really,” Will said. “Right now would be good.” 

She took one look at Hannibal and backed away a step. She turned and ran for the car. 

“She was trying to help,” Will said. 

“I had the situation under control.” 

“Don’t hurt her. She helped you find me, didn’t she?” 

She had. It might even be said that he was in her debt. And Drake still lived. He was in bad shape, but he didn’t have to last long. Hannibal wouldn’t have the time or facilities for anything elaborate. 

“I won’t,” he said. 

He stepped over Drake and knelt beside Will. He knew he had to take Will to the car and let him go but he could not make himself move. 

"I’m okay," Will said softly. "I promise. It’s really just my feet. Maybe some bruises." 

"He made you bleed."

"I’ll recover."

"He frightened you." 

"You’ve done worse." 

They looked at each other. Hannibal stared into his eyes. He felt caught and grateful to be caught. 

Will pressed a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth. "Go home," he said. "Go home and wait for me." 

"I will be there," Hannibal said. 

"Go tonight. Don’t—” He looked at Drake, still unconscious on the ground. "Just forget about him. Please. I don't want to lose you." 

"You won't. I don’t intend to begin all over again, but I must do this."

“You don’t have to.” 

"He hurt you. Can you say you would have no thought of vengeance if he’d done it to me?" 

Will looked down and shook his head. "But I wouldn’t do it."

"You are not me, and you have never asked me for more than I can give. Don’t ask me to let him go, Will. It’s too much." 

Will gripped his hand. His nails sank into Hannibal skin, and then he let him go all at once. "If you’re not waiting for me when I get home, I will find you." 

"I’ll pick you up at the airport." 

Hannibal wanted to say more, to do more, but there was no time. 

Will touched his cheek. Hannibal turned his head to kiss his palm before he forced himself to pick him up and stand. He walked with even, measured steps toward the car. When he got there, he found he still couldn’t let Will go. He ducked his head and breathed against his neck. Will’s hand curled over the back of his head and smoothed across his hair.  

Freddie Lounds, standing on the far side of the car, cleared her throat. 

"Touching," she said. "Super creepy, but touching. But the serial killer – I mean the _unconscious_ serial killer – could we do something about him? Like leave, or call the cops, or leave and then call the cops?"

“Yes,” Hannibal said. “We should certainly do something about him.” He set Will down in the backseat of the car and turned to her. “It’s important that you understand what happened here tonight, Ms. Lounds. You got the address from Mrs. Drake. You found the house. Will had escaped from the basement by the time you arrived. You shot Walter Drake, and the two of you left together. You know nothing of Drake’s ultimate fate."

She looked from him to Will and back again. "You’re going to kill him, aren’t you?”

“Eventually.” 

She looked at Will again, at his feet and the blood on his face. She wavered, but not for long. 

"Yeah, okay," she said. She stuck the gun back in her purse, got in the car, and shut the door. She waited, staring straight ahead with her hands on the wheel. 

Hannibal looked at Will. 

"Be careful," Will said. 

"I always am." 

Hannibal shut the door and watched until the car was out of sight. 

He shrugged the stifling cloak of emotion from his shoulders and turned toward the house. It was easy now that he knew Will was safe. With this one simple purpose in front of him, his mind felt clearer than it had for months. He wondered what the kitchen held in the way of knives. 

*

"Should we get our stories straight or something?" Lounds said. 

"Are you sure you’re okay?" 

"Me? What the hell did he do to your feet? They look like raw meat." 

"You shot someone." 

"That’s why I got the gun. To shoot people."

"You got it to defend yourself. Pull over for a minute before we get to the highway." 

She did and then shook her arms out and rubbed her hands hard over her face. "I’m fine," she said. “I’m totally fine. I didn’t even kill him. And he would’ve killed all of us. It was self defense.“ 

“Yeah.” 

"Lecter’s going to kill him. Not just kill him. He wanted him alive, so he could …” 

"Yeah.” 

"You’re okay with that?"

"No. But there was nothing I could say to stop him.” 

"You stopped him from killing me." 

"My influence with Hannibal only goes so far."

She pulled onto the road again and then onto the highway. Will watched the gray night landscape blur past. A pair of bright animal eyes shone briefly and vanished. 

"Is he going to eat him?" Lounds asked. 

"I don’t know. I hope not. Walter Drake showing up as a Chesapeake Ripper kill would be a hell of a mess." 

"Yeah, no shit." She glanced at him in the rearview mirror. "What is it with you two?" 

Will shook his head and closed his eyes. "What I said on the show. He’s part of me. He always will be. And I’m part of him. Maybe a bigger part than he’d counted on." 

"Did you know he’d come?"

"I was pretty sure." 

"I asked him why. He said because you belong to him." 

Will let the silence settle for a minute or two. "It goes both ways," he said. "If you tell Jack about him, I won’t back up your story." 

"It’d be great publicity."

"Which is why Jack will believe me and not you." 

"Whatever. Fine. Don’t thank me for helping save your life or anything." 

Will smiled. "Thanks, Lounds." 

“He’d kill me if I told them, wouldn’t he? Even if no one believed me.” 

“Yeah, probably.”

She rubbed at her throat. “I thought he was going to do it right there. I had a gun to his head, and he didn’t even care.”

“Get them to check you over at the hospital. Strangulation’s tricky. Throat tissue can continue swelling—”

They hit a pothole, and Will’s feet jarred against the door. His world went white and then black with pain. When he came back to himself, he was breathing hard through his nose, palm pressed across his mouth, and Lounds was yelling at him. 

"Are you okay? What happened? Shit, should I call an ambulance to meet us?" 

"Just drive," Will said through his teeth. 

They picked up speed, tires whining against the road. 

They made it to the nearest hospital. Will was extracted from the car and laid on a gurney. From there, it was bright lights and pain and endless questions, and he almost wished himself back in the basement. Or wished he’d stayed with Hannibal. 

He shut that line of thought off ruthlessly, but it came back and back, and eventually he drifted in a haze of painkillers and wondered what Hannibal had done with Winston and the puppy when he left France. 

He slept and he dreamed of the sun on their pond, of Hannibal naked and gazing solemnly at him from the water, surrounded by white waterlilies. 

*

Will had two surgeries on his feet before they let him leave the hospital. The doctors talked to him about splintered bones, about pins and screws. He tried to listen, but he was on a lot of pain medication, and most of the technical details went over his head. He saw their faces when he asked about walking casts and didn’t ask again. 

He got used to the wheelchair, to hauling himself into it from the hospital bed and back out again. He looked at his X-rays, and he had to admit that they didn’t look much like feet at all, more a collection of chipped and broken china. 

Beverly came the day after the first surgery, ostensibly to take his statement and in reality to eat Chinese take out with him and watch bad movies on her laptop. She sat in the chair for about ten minutes while he balanced the laptop on his knees and she squinted. After that, she pushed him over and fit herself in beside him. There wasn’t much room, but she didn’t object when he put an arm around her. 

"How are you doing?" he said, as _Birdemic: Shock and Terror_ played on the screen. 

"Me? I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?" 

He shrugged. "Just asking." 

"You’re the one in the hospital." 

"You’re the one with a friend in the hospital." 

"That’s not the same."

"No, it’s worse," he said. 

She jabbed her chopsticks into a carton of noodles. “We shouldn’t have involved you."

"You didn’t know. Jack didn’t know. No one could’ve known." He squeezed her shoulder. "I could’ve said no."

"You never do though. I wish you would." 

He shrugged. "I’m not staying. I’ll be out of range in a few more weeks. Meanwhile, apparently I’m going on The Tonight Show in a wheelchair because Lounds won’t cancel." 

"Do you want me to talk to her?" Beverly said, and it sounded like a threat. 

"I’ll be fine. Can I still stay with you when I get out of here?"

"Like I’d let you go anywhere else."

Onscreen, the birds dive-bombed some people and exploded in what looked like a shower of Sunny D. The people died instantly. 

"What the hell is this?" Will said.

"Shut up, this is amazing. This is the best thing I’ve seen since _It! The Terror from Beyond Space."_

He wondered if that would be next and decided not to borrow trouble by bringing it up. "How’s Jack?"

"He hasn’t been to see you? He said he was going to."

"He has, but he didn’t say much." 

"He feels guilty. He _should_ feel guilty,” she said. 

Will shook his head. “He shouldn’t. Neither should you. There was no reason to think Drake would go after me. Neither of you even saw the interview that set him off. This was impossible to predict." 

"We let you down once before. We should’ve known. If it weren’t for _Hannibal Lecter_ you’d still be in prison and we’d all think you were a killer! How – how do you keep going after that? How do you not hate all of us?" 

"The evidence was compelling. I would’ve thought it was me too."

"No, you wouldn’t. You would’ve known. I don’t know how, but you would have. You always do. That’s why Jack keeps coming back to you even when he shouldn’t. Hell of a talent you’ve got there." 

Will thought of his house in Wolf Trap, the steady grind of teaching, the isolation he’d allowed to swallow him whole in his old life. He thought of Hannibal coming for him and carrying him out of the dark. 

"There’s nothing I would change," he said. "Things are better now. They’re good. And I don’t know how I would’ve gotten from there to here without everything in between." 

She stared at him for a second and then hugged him hard. They watched the rest of the movie in silence, Beverly leaning against his side. 

*

That night, Will woke with the sensation of being watched. He looked around, but could see only shadows infesting the corners of the room and a tiny line of light under the door. 

"Hannibal?" he whispered. 

Hannibal stepped forward and emerged from the darkness like he’d materialized from nothing. Will wondered if he was dreaming. He took Hannibal’s offered hand and clutched it hard. It didn’t feel like a dream. 

"Are you really here?" Will asked. 

"I wanted to see you before I left."

"You’re supposed to be waiting for me at home." 

"I will be there long before you arrive. You’re staying to do the book tour?"

"Yeah," Will sighed. "The doctors want me back for more X-rays in two weeks anyway to see if everything’s still where they put it. So I might as well." 

"And it will assuage the ever more violent public curiosity about you." 

"I guess. You were right. I don’t want them showing up on our doorstep." 

"How are you?" Hannibal said. 

"Tired. All the time." It was a relief to admit it. He’d tried to sound normal with Jack and Beverly. They felt bad enough as it was. Hannibal brushed a hand across his cheek, and Will leaned into it. "One more surgery to go." 

"Walter Drake should be glad he’s already dead." 

Will swallowed and looked away. Hannibal sat next to him and took his hand in both of his, warming it with his touch. 

"I want to go home,” Will said. 

"And I want you there. It’s only a little while longer." 

"What did you do with Winston?"

"He is at a boarding kennel. It has excellent reviews. You don’t need to worry."

"What are you going to do about the puppy? Did you already take her to the shelter?"

"No. I had meant to do it the day I heard about your abduction. She’s at the kennel with Winston."

"Did you name her?" Will said. 

Hannibal gave him a quelling look. "No, I did not name her." 

"You could keep her, you know. Nothing says you have to give her up. It’d be good for Winston to have another dog around to play with." 

"And good for you to have one more stray brought under your wing?”

"Maybe." 

Hannibal looked down at their joined hands. The lines Will remembered in his face seemed more deeply etched than they had been a week ago. His mouth drooped at the corners. 

"I will consider it," he said. "And now I’m afraid I must go. It would be foolish to stay too long." 

Will reached for him. Hannibal’s arms closed around him and gripped tight. 

"You smell of someone else," Hannibal murmured. He pulled back to look at Will. "Who has been so close to you?"

"Beverly was here. We watched some movies together."

"Her scent is all over you." 

Will kissed him and pulled him close again. "I’m fine. You got me out of there. Tone down the possessive thing, okay? Be glad I have friends here." 

Hannibal made a soft noise, equally discontent and agreement, and pressed his face to the crook of Will’s neck. He kissed him there once and stood. "I am glad," he said. "I don’t want you to be alone."

"I know. You just want me to be not alone with you."

"Ideally. Yes." 

"Less than three weeks. Are you going to watch me on TV?"

"Yes."

"Good. You can tell me how ridiculous I sounded." Will paused. "Keep the puppy, okay?"

"If you wish."

"I do." He suspected Hannibal would need something to occupy him, and house training would do it. 

Hannibal kissed his hand. "Goodbye," he said. 

"Be good," Will said softly. 

Hannibal nodded once and slid out into the corridor. 

It was a long time before Will could sleep again.


	5. Chapter 5

Will dozed for the first hour or so of the flight home. The airport had exhausted him. Getting through security in the wheelchair had been worse than The Tonight Show. At least no one had held him up and groped his crotch before he went on the air. 

The hot, dull ache of his feet woke him. The doctors had warned it would be bad: the pressure change and the position would lead to swelling, and he couldn’t exactly lean back and put his feet up. He’d taken his painkillers and assumed they were being overcautious. 

By the third hour of the flight, it hurt more than it had since Drake’s basement, and he wasn’t due for another dose until after he landed. He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes. All he could do was sit and wait.  

In Marseille, he had to wait until everyone else was off the plane, wait for a cart, and then wait for a wheelchair. He heaved his bag off the carousel himself, but wasn’t allowed to wheel himself around. The guy pushing him said something about liability. Will got himself onto a bench outside, tipped the guy, and sent him away. 

It wasn’t just his feet by then. His head hurt, and his neck and back ached with tension. The sun was too bright. Everything was too loud. When Hannibal finally rolled up in the Aston Martin, Will couldn’t even find the energy to be relieved. 

Hannibal got him and his bag loaded into the car in silence. They drove with the top up, and Will was grateful for the quiet, for the shelter from light and sound, and most of all grateful that they were alone and that the only person touching him for the foreseeable future would be Hannibal. 

"I got you a wheelchair. And I found someone in the city to look at your X-rays and make sure everything is proceeding as it should."

"Thanks," Will mumbled. He had his eyes closed, his head back against the seat. The setting sun lit the world behind his eyelids to reddish-gold. 

“Do you want to sleep?”

“Want to. Can’t.” 

Hannibal talked quietly about the replacement tile he’d bought, the paint color and desk for his study, how Winston and the puppy were getting along.  

Will didn’t quite sleep, but he did fall into a drowsy sort of stupor, lulled by Hannibal’s familiar voice and the mundane subject matter. At some point, they made it home. 

He came to himself with a rush of panic when Hannibal lifted him out of the car. The last time Hannibal had picked him up, he’d still been in Drake’s house, and he could smell the dank air following him out of the basement. He clutched hard at Hannibal’s shoulders. 

"Shh," Hannibal said. He nudged the car door closed with his hip and carried Will toward the house. 

"Sorry, sorry," Will said, but his heart was still beating hard. "You – you said you got a wheelchair." 

"I’m taking you up to the bedroom. For that, I’m afraid you’ll have to rely on me. Houses built in the 1700s are not typically wheelchair accessible." 

"Where are the dogs?" 

"In the back room. You'll see them at dinner." 

Hannibal started up the creaking stairs.

"Are they doing okay?" Will said. 

"They're quite well." Hannibal set him down on the bed and sat next to him. "And how are you? How much pain are you in?" 

Will opened his mouth to say he was fine. What came out instead was: "A lot." 

"How long since your last dose of pain medication?" 

"More than six hours. I’m due."

Hannibal took a bottle from the bedside table and poured out a dose of orange syrup into a glass. "Take this instead." 

Will swallowed it down. It tasted a little like cough medicine. "What is it?"

"Roxanol. Liquid morphine. I suspected the flight would be hard on you." He paused. "Is there anything you want?"

Will shook his head. He couldn’t think of anything. Mostly he just couldn’t think. 

"Then will you let me do what I want?" Hannibal asked. 

Will smiled a little. “Did you make plans?”

“Yes. I had plans last time you came back to me as well. You spoiled them then.” 

“I won’t this time.” 

He let Hannibal help him undress. By the time he was in the bath, feet and lower legs hanging over the side to keep them dry, the morphine had started to kick in. He laid his head back and floated. The tub was nearly as wide as it was long. He dunked his head all the way underwater and scrubbed his hair clean with Hannibal’s shampoo.

By the time Hannibal came to help him out and wrap him in a towel, the ache in his feet had gone from nearly intolerable to a nagging pain that he could almost ignore. "Strong stuff," he said.

"Yes. Your normal medication was not enough. You needed a reset. "

"And now what do I need, Dr. Lecter?" 

"Sleep." 

“Still not sure I can," he said, but he yawned halfway through the sentence. 

Hannibal laid him on the bed. "Face down, please," he said, and Will rolled over without asking why. A second later he felt oil drizzled over his back and Hannibal’s strong hands kneading his clenched muscles. 

Will groaned as Hannibal dug a thumb in behind his shoulder blade. "God. S’good," he said, and then words slipped away from him. A light scent of almond and chamomile filled the room. 

Hannibal finished his back and worked his way down his legs, his calves, and then up to do his arms. Will’s last memory was of Hannibal’s touch sliding over his palm and wrist and lifting his hand to kiss his fingertips. 

*

He expected to find Hannibal gone when he woke, but he was still there, asleep by his side, in Will’s plaid pajama bottoms and nothing else. Will watched him for a minute and then brushed his hair out of his face. Hannibal opened his eyes immediately. 

"How are you?" he asked, voice rough from sleep. 

"I’m good," Will said. 

"Are you hungry?"

"I could eat." 

"I made cassoulet. We can have it with a salad." 

"Sounds great. The last three meals I ate were pizza or airline food." 

Hannibal made a gently disgusted face and stretched before he reached for Will. 

"You can’t just carry me everywhere," Will said. "I can sleep downstairs till I can walk again. At least till I get crutches.” 

"I want you in our bed," Hannibal said, and there was a hard, almost desperate undertone to his voice that Will wasn’t prepared to argue with. At least not right now. 

Down in the kitchen, he set Will in a chair in the corner. It wasn’t the same style as the leather armchair in Hannibal’s Baltimore kitchen, but it sat in the same general location and served the same purpose. The fabric was a dark red pattern that looked to Will as if it belonged on a rug, but it was soft and comfortable. 

Hannibal let the dogs out of the back room. They both came running, nails skittering on the tile, headed toward the kitchen. 

Winston stopped short, turned sharply, and loped over to stick his face in Will’s hands and sniff him all over and sneeze at the almond oil that lingered on his skin. Will checked that Hannibal wasn’t watching and leaned down to hug him. He felt a little foolish, more so when his throat tightened and Winston licked his face in a worried way, but he was home. 

The puppy jumped up against his ankle and yipped. Will lifted her up into his lap to scratch her ears. "What did you name her?" he asked.

Hannibal glanced at him. "I haven’t. I left that for you."

"No way. She’s your dog."

"She is not."

"You found her. You brought her home. You kept her." 

"At your insistence." 

"I didn’t insist. I asked. You didn’t even argue." 

Hannibal bent to retrieve a pot from the oven and then looked at Will over his shoulder. "I hoped she would distract you while you were healing."

She. Not it. He still slipped up with Winston sometimes, but not with the puppy. Will looked down to hide his smile. "The one cleaning up the dog pee picks the name. That’s the rule. And that’s you." 

Hannibal didn’t sigh, but he looked as if he’d like to. "I’ll consider it." 

He got out two plates and began to arrange a bouquet of lettuce leaves, radishes, poached asparagus, and pea shoots on them. Will set the puppy down on the floor and slid down after her. Winston collapsed across his lap and nosed at his hand. The puppy sniffed at his feet until he twitched one of them in what was apparently a threatening manner. She ran away to hide behind Hannibal. 

"Where would you like to eat?" Hannibal asked.

"Is it warm enough outside?"

"Certainly." 

Hannibal produced the wheelchair for him when the meal was ready. It had a high wicker back, a velvet cushion on the seat, and polished wood arms. 

“Where did you find this thing?” Will asked. 

“An antique shop in Marseille.” 

“You got me an antique wheelchair?”

“It works perfectly well.”

Will couldn’t argue with that, and it was more comfortable than the rented ones he’d been dealing with, if heavier and harder to wheel around. 

Hannibal carried their plates outside while Will followed. They ate in the cool twilight. Winston lay under the table hoping for fallout. The puppy danced around, begging for scraps, until Will put a stop to it. 

"Have you been feeding her at the table?" he asked. 

"Near the table perhaps." 

"How’s the house training going?" Poorly, he imagined, if Hannibal was letting her get away with this. 

"Please find a more pleasant topic of conversation for the table." 

Will bit down on a smile and changed the subject. 

*

Hannibal woke three times in the night. The first two wakings were prompted by the subconscious certainty that Will was gone again. They were assuaged easily enough by the sound of steady breath next to him in the dark. The third was caused by an arm striking his chest, a foot kicking out against his leg, and Will’s subsequent cry of pain. 

"Will—"

"I’m awake. Fuck. I’m awake. Sorry." Will sat up and shoved his hair back from his face. "Did I hurt you?" 

"No. Did you hurt yourself?"

"Some. Yeah. Would you get me a glass of water?"

"Of course." 

Hannibal got a glass from the bathroom. Will gulped it down. 

"Will you tell me what you dreamed of?"

"The basement. Waiting in the dark. Locking myself back in.” 

"Locking yourself in?"

"I had to. It was a test. He gave them a chance to escape. They were supposed to stay with him. If they didn’t, he broke their feet."

"He broke yours anyway."

"That was later. I said something I shouldn’t have.” 

“There was no way to avoid antagonizing him. The nature of his mental illness precluded it.” 

"Look who’s talking." 

Hannibal paused. He would have liked to touch Will, to hold him, but the tension in his body pushed outward like a forcefield. It seemed unwise to violate it. 

"You cannot blame yourself for anything I did to you either," he said carefully. 

Will turned slowly to look at him. "Is that right?" 

"Isn’t it?" 

"What did you do to Walter Drake?" 

"I killed him. You know that."

"Did you eat him?" Will asked. 

"Parts of him."

"Which parts?" 

"The kidneys. A portion of the heart." 

"How did you cook them?" 

"I cooked the kidneys in butter. My resources were limited." 

"And the heart?" Will said. "How did you cook his heart?" 

Hannibal wouldn’t let himself look away. "I ate it raw.”

“All of it?”

“Only a bite.”

Will was quiet for a moment. “Did you – was he still alive? Did he know? Did you make him watch?” 

“Don’t do this to yourself, Will.” 

“I’m not doing it to myself. You’re doing it to me.”

“You don’t need to think about it.”

“How can I not think about it? Tell me.”

“I ate it warm from his chest. It was still beating when I took it from him. I hope he saw me bite into it before he lost consciousness, but I can’t be certain." 

Will bent over his knees. "I want to go outside. Can we?"

"Of course." 

Hannibal carried him down the stairs and held him a moment before he set him down in the wheelchair. Will clung to his neck for a second longer. They went out together. Hannibal pushed him down the slope toward the pond. 

Black water reflected the stars, the trees, and a sliver of the moon between lily pads. Hannibal sat down in the grass and rested his cheek against Will’s thigh. Will combed slowly through his hair. 

"I’m not used to dreaming about things that actually happened to me,” Will said.  

"Do you dream of the asylum?"

"Once or twice. Not as often as I thought I would. That was over pretty fast, and to be honest I don’t remember a lot of it that clearly. This went on and on. And I kept thinking how bad it was going to be if you found me. What you’d do to him. If I didn’t get out in time."

"And your fears became reality." 

"Yeah. But I never doubted you’d come for me." 

"I always will. Do you wish I hadn’t killed him?"

Will looked out toward the pond for a minute before he answered. "How bad did you hurt him?"

"Not as badly as I wanted to. I didn’t have the time." 

“What would you have done?”

“Will …”

“Tell me.” 

Hannibal caught his hand. “No. If you must know what I’ve done, then I will tell you that, but you don’t need to torment yourself with the things I haven’t done as well.” 

Will fell silent, bent forward in the chair with one hand over his eyes. 

“You need to rest.” 

Will shook his head. “I can’t breathe in there.” 

The sheets would probably need to be changed in any case. Will was starting to shiver as sweat dried on his skin. 

“Wait here a moment then,” Hannibal said. 

Will gestured to his feet. "Not going anywhere."

Hannibal walked back to the house. He collected two blankets and a flask of whiskey and returned to spread one blanket out on the grass. "Will you join me?" he asked. 

Will slid down out of the wheelchair. Hannibal wrapped the remaining blanket around his shoulders, but Will held his arm out and would not be still until Hannibal was close against his side with the blanket pulled around him as well. 

"I’m not sorry," Hannibal said.

"I know you’re not." 

"You shouldn’t be either." 

Will looked at him, eyes dark and expression flat. "That is not something you get to decide, Hannibal." 

More and more often, Hannibal was finding that he couldn’t hold Will’s gaze. This was one of those times. He looked out at the pond instead. 

"He was lonely and confused and afraid," Will said, after a minute of silence. 

"Do you think he would have improved under Chilton’s care?" 

"I think he deserved the chance." 

"I could not bear the thought of him continuing to breathe."

"I know," Will said. He wiped hard at his eyes. 

Hannibal caught his wrist. "Don’t cry for him."

Will smiled a little. "Also not something you get to decide. I’m okay. I’m not mad at you, not really. I’m just tired." 

"Then you should sleep."

"You always make that sound so easy." 

"You had no trouble earlier. Close your eyes.”

Will leaned against him, head on his shoulder. "I missed you," he said. "Every day. And I missed this place."

Hannibal said nothing, only held Will closer. Will slumped against him, blanket pulled high around his shoulders and head ducked down. Eventually, his breathing evened out and he slept. Hannibal watched over him until dawn. 

*

Will woke back in bed with the smell of coffee drifting up the stairs. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. He was alone in the room except for the puppy, who was hurling herself at the side of the bed again and again, too small to make the jump. Will picked her up and held her in his lap until she calmed down and sat panting up at him. 

"Perruque," Hannibal said as he walked through the door. He sat two mugs down on the bedside table and bent to kiss Will’s forehead. 

"Her name? You decided?"

"Yes. It was the name of one of Cardinal Richelieu’s cats." 

"It’s French?"

"Yes." 

"What does it mean?"

Hannibal took a sip of his coffee. "Wig," he said. 

Will snorted a laugh and covered his mouth. "Sorry. You named your dog Wig?" 

"Perruque," Hannibal said, with a stern look. 

"Wig." Will scratched her ears. "Wiggy?" She yipped happily. “She does look a little like somebody’s toupee.” 

Will grinned up at Hannibal, who was wearing the look he always wore when Will gave him shit about something, a sort of bemused ire that suggested Hannibal still hadn’t quite worked out why he’d never put Will out of his misery and maybe it wasn’t too late. 

"Get back in bed," Will told him. Hannibal took Wig and set her down on the floor before he obeyed. He was still wearing Will’s pajamas. Will snapped the waistband. "Did you wear these the whole time I was gone?"

"Not the whole time, no." 

"Do they still smell like me?"

"You were gone for weeks. I had to wash them. Will—" Hannibal was looking at him with a faint frown. 

"What is it?" 

"I’m sorry that I – that I caused you distress. Truly." 

Will stared at him for a second and then looked quickly away. He’d thought they’d dealt with this last night, as much as they were going to. As much as either of them could. Hannibal’s careful, conditional regret punctured something inside him. It was more than he had expected. A lot more. He bent over his knees and blinked hard. His throat ached. 

Hannibal touched his back lightly, as if he might not be welcome. 

"You don’t have to do this," Will said. “I never asked you to change for me.” 

Hannibal bent over him, barely touching, but close, sheltering. "I missed you every day. Every moment. You have changed me more than you know. More than I was aware." 

Will put his arms around him and pulled him down against the pillows. He tugged the blanket up over their heads. They lay in the dark and breathed with their foreheads pressed together and their lips not quite touching. 

"I want you to be happy," Hannibal said. "I want you to be mine." 

"I am. Both of those." 

Hannibal kissed him, slow and soft, deeper and deeper, until Will felt he was falling into the dark, that they were both falling together. He pulled at Hannibal’s pajamas. Hannibal pushed them off and then helped Will off with his as well. They touched each other with oddly tentative hands under the covers, both of them blind and wary. 

Hannibal laid a hand over Will’s heart and then kissed him there between his spread fingers. Will thought of Hannibal pulling Drake’s heart from his chest and biting into it while Drake’s life faded. And then he thought of Hannibal’s face when he opened the basement door and found Will alive. The same man, impossible to separate. 

He clutched Hannibal close and kissed his neck, bit down a little behind his ear and felt Hannibal’s grip tighten at his waist. 

"You don’t want to sleep again?" Hannibal said. 

"I’m not tired anymore." 

Hannibal stroked down his side, over his ass, and along the back of his thigh as he tugged it up over his own leg and folded Will tight against him. Will had spent the last few weeks in a soup of pain, exhaustion, and irritation that had nearly made him forget he even had a libido, but here in the warm dark with his cock dragging against Hannibal’s stomach he was remembering quickly. 

"Feels nice," he said, on a sigh. He could feel Hannibal getting hard too, and that was even better. 

Hannibal kissed his cheeks and the hollows of his eyes. Will moved down until their cocks lined up side by side and he could touch them both at once, drag his fingers over the heads, press them tight together with a careful squeeze. He rocked his hips, and Hannibal’s hands settled on his ass, fingers pressing into his skin, drawing him nearer. 

Will rocked against him. It was a tease for both of them, a buildup of warmth and pleasure, spaced out with lazy kisses. Hannibal mouthed at the side of his neck where he was the most sensitive until Will squirmed and ducked his head. Will slid his fingers between Hannibal’s cheeks and rubbed there while Hannibal’s breath went quick and hot. 

Hannibal pushed him onto his back and lay over him, thighs spread. He licked over one nipple, and Will’s hands went to his hair to keep him there as he arched up. One and then the other, hard licks and tugs with his teeth that made Will forget himself and pull too hard. 

Hannibal sat up halfway with the blankets tented over his bent back. He slid up Will’s body and lined up their cocks again, not side by side but head to head. Will almost gasped at the first slick rub and grabbed for Hannibal’s forearm. 

"Do you want me to stop?" Hannibal asked. He sounded amused. 

Will smacked his arm and let him go. 

He kept going, pressing them together in small circles, and then he paused. Something else touched Will’s cock and surrounded him, warm and smooth. He lifted his head from the pillow to look. 

In the light coming through the gaps in the blanket, he could see Hannibal’s foreskin stretched out past the head of his own cock and over Will’s. Hannibal was looking down, sliding it back and forth, and there was something in his look of careful concentration that made Will’s breath catch more than the act itself. 

Hannibal glanced up at him and shook his head to clear his hair from his eyes. His lips were kissed and bitten red, and his cheeks were flushed. "All right?" he asked. 

"Very all right. For you too?" 

Hannibal nodded quickly. "It’s good." 

Will stared at the stretch of his skin over both of them. He reached for Hannibal’s shoulders and drew him close enough to kiss. Hannibal squeezed tighter, moved a little faster, short tight strokes as Will closed his eyes and panted against his cheek. 

He came first, and then everything was slick and slippery between them, and Hannibal groaned low. His nails sunk into Will’s back as he worked himself harder, fingers slipping against Will’s sensitized cock. He came seconds later with a shudder and wrapped his arms around Will and fell down onto the bed with him. 

They lay together, panting, sweaty and sticky and still pressed as close as they could reasonably get. Closer. Legs wound together, Will’s hands in Hannibal’s hair again, Hannibal’s arms crushingly tight around him. 

"Never did that before," Will said. “I didn’t even know it was a thing." 

"You liked it?"

"A lot. It doesn’t hurt you?"

"It can if one is not careful, but no. It didn’t hurt." 

"Good." Will yawned. "What time is it?" 

"Time for you to sleep again." 

Will almost managed to argue. He should get up, get used to the time difference, eat something. At least drink his coffee. In the end, he only made some noise against Hannibal’s neck that even he couldn’t interpret and closed his eyes. 

"Don’t go," he said. 

"I will be here when you wake up." 

"Thanks." 

Hannibal kissed him and tucked Will’s head under his chin. "Thank you," he said.

For what, Will didn’t know. He was asleep before he could ask.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can check out my [original writing here](http://www.eleanorkos.com/) if you're interested.
> 
>  
> 
>  [The antique wheelchair and also a video that I like to imagine is how Will plays with the puppy.](http://emungere.tumblr.com/post/129707588052/ladders-11-nimble-and-light-ch-55-will-dozed)


End file.
